Love is stronger than hate
by Linneagb
Summary: Sophia and Sophie, sisters and friends forever. That was how it was supposed to be. But destiny had other plans for us. I now live with a bunch of people, in some sort of home called the dumping ground, and I dont know if I can make it without my sister.
1. Shot

"Wonder where Luce is now," I said. I and my identical twin sister, Sophie sat in the living room.

"I wish I knew." She said. And what happened the moment after that changed the rest of my life.

"Freeze" the door flew open and three men with black clothes, and guns came into the room. I and Sophie stood up.

"We´re looking for Luce Atkins" one of the men said.

"Well, he´s not here." I said.

"Tell us where he is."

"We don´t know." Sophie said. The men loaded their guns, and reached the pipes towards us.

"tell us" one of the men said. "We´ve already shot your dad."

"No…no," Sophie started running towards the door. I tried to catch her. But too late, a shot rang out, and Sophie fell to the ground. I squatted down beside her.

"Sophie," I shook her shoulder. "Sophie please don´t be dead, please."

"It´s up to you now," one of the men said. "Where, is your brother?"

I closed my eyes; a tear fell down my cheek.

"I don´t know," I whispered. And I could hear the shot rang out. I fell to the ground beside my dear sister. And the next thing I knew, the men were gone.

"Sophie, " I almost whispered. "Please open your eyes, please don´t be dead. Sophie if I´m surviving this, I can´t live without you. Sophie please." A man came through the door; he ran to us and squatted down next to me… And I realized, this moment, was my last.

**So… this was the prologue, I know it´s short. But I wanted to end it right there. What ya think? **

**And also, Sophie and the others aren´t from Britain, I don´t really know which country they are from, But I know, that in this country, it is like, a war going on. Not really a war, but you get it. And they speak English in this country. Well, you want more? Review**


	2. Arrival

**So, well in this story, Elektra´s not there anymore, neither are Sapphire or Frank, but I´ve made a couple of OC:s living in Elektra´s and Frank´s old rooms. **

**Mike´s point of view**

"House meeting." I shouted. There was loads of slamming of doors, and every child in the house came running down. When we were all gathered in the kitchen, I started speaking.

"So, there is a new girl arriving today. And I expect you all to be on your best behavior."

"Yeah, cause this girl." Gina began. "We don´t know much about her, but she´s had a really rough time lately. And you´re all going to be nice to her yeah!" The children nodded.

"What´s her name?" Carmen asked. I and Gina looked at each other.

"We… don´t know." I said slowly. "But she´s from, some country I can´t remember the name of. She came here after an injury. To get good care in a real hospital."

"Why doesn´t she move back home." Tyler asked.

"It´s not safe for here there."

"What else do we know about her?" Rick asked.

"Well, nothing really," I said. "Except, she´s been through a really rough time lately."

"What´s happened to her?" Tee asked.

"We don´t know," Gina said. When we heard the doorbell ring.

"That´d be her" I went to open it.

**Sophia´s point of view**

I stood behind the man, Rob or whatever was his name. He rang the doorbell. Then the door opened, by an almost bald man, in the middle- ages.

"Hi," he said… "You must be…."

"Sophia." I said.

"Nice to meet you Sophia, I´m Mike Milligan, head care worker." I walked after Mike and Rob through a hallway and into a room to the right. There were several kids between the ages of about nine and fifteen.

"Hi I´m Tee," a blonde girl said. "What´s your name?" I kept quiet, didn´t know if I should tell her or not.

"Hi I´m Harry," a blonde boy said. "This is Jeff." He pointed at his stuffed giraffe. "What´s your name?"

I still didn´t say anything. A black haired boy, seemed like the age of fifteen sighed loudly and said.

"Oh great, another weirdo."

"I´m not a weirdo," I almost whispered.

"Wow, she speaks." The boy said.

"Shut up Stan, she just got here." Tee said. "And it´s up to her if she wants to tell us her name."

"It´s Sophia,"

"What did you say?" Tee asked.

"My name… it´s Sophia."

"Wow, that´s a beautiful name," a dark girl said. "I´m Carmen. And this is Lily." She pointed at another blonde girl.

"I don´t live here anymore." Lily said. "I live with my dad. But I come back for respite care every once in a while. And this is Shadow," she pointed at a three- legged dog in front of her. I nodded.

"I´m Stan," the boy who called me a weirdo said. "Why are you here?"

"None of your business," I fizzled, Stan looked like he was going to say something, when Mike, Rob and another adult came into the room.

"Wow, you got her to speak like, immediately" Rob said to the others. "I tried all the way from the hospital, and just got her to say her name."

"Why were you in hospital?" Lily asked.  
"None of your business," I said, and looked to the floor.

**Tee´s point of view**

Sophia seemed a bit strange. All the time, she held her right arm, pressed against her side. Like she had had some injury right there. She was pale, but still she had, dark brown, almost black hair and brown eyes.

**Sophia´s point of view**

"I see you two are friends already," he nodded to Tee. "That´s good cause you´ll have to share room." I nodded.

"Well," an over- weight, that looked Jamaican said. "I´m Gina, care worker. I guess you want to see your room. Or do you want to come to the office and talk to us first."

"Office," I almost whispered.

" Well, come on then." Mike said. "After me."

**Well, this isn´t as good as I hoped it would be. But don´t give up on it. It´ll get better.**


	3. Talking

"So… Sophia." Mike began. "Have you got something to tell us?"

"Well, what do you wanna know?"

"Your surname, age," Mike said

"My full name is Sophia Atkins, I´m thirteen years old." Mike riffled in the papers on the desktop, with reading glasses on his nose.

"So… where are you from?"

"Transylvania!" I said ironic. "No, but seriously, you don´t need to know where I come from."

"Actually, I think we do." Gina said. I leaned backwards.

"Well, if you have to know, I´m from a country called Gota city called Lulei" I said. "Anything else you want to know?"

"Are you going to tell us why you´re here?" Gina asked.

"No,"

"Well," Mike smiled. "If you want to tell us, we´ll be right here."

"Can I go now?"

"Sure, you want to see the room you´re going to stay in?" I nodded.

"After me then," I stood up and opened the door, behind the door stood a black- haired boy with a notebook, he was about to give me a heart attack, I screamed and had fallen over, if Mike hadn´t been behind me, catching my fall.

"You´re ok?" he asked, when I stood on my own two feet again.

"I´m fine," I gasped.

"What´s your name?" the boy asked.

"what´s yours?" I asked.

"The name´s Gus Carmichael."

"Sophia Atkins" I said,

"How do you spell it?"

"Why do you want to know that?"

"Because I have to know."

"Ok, ok, ehrm, S-O-P-H-I-A A-T-K-I-N-S"

"Where are you from?"

"None of your business."

"Gus…" Mike said. "Don´t you think you can let Sophia settle in a bit first. Before you ask her questions?"

"Yes, but she has to be ready for my tour in thirty minutes and" he looked at his watch. "Thirty three seconds, thirty two, thirty one."  
"I´ll make sure she´s ready ´til then." Mike said. "Come with me, Sophia." I walked after Mike, upstairs, through a hallway, and a room to the left. The inside of the doors, and the wardrobe- doors were stripy in green and red. There were two beds, and Tee sat on one of them, sewing.

"What do you think?" Mike asked.

"It´s, it´s… colorful."

"You´ll get used to it." Tee said. "hang on, where are your things?"

"Back at home, hard to get them from there." I said.

"I guess you can lend some of Tee´s clothes, for a while" Mike said. "I´ll arrange with Gina or Melanie so you guys can get you some new clothes next week." I nodded. And sat down on my bed. I´d been taken to the hospital in Lulei first, there they stabilized me, and then I was taken to the hospital in London, I had been there for two weeks. Was in coma, the first week. And then woke up to know that Sophie, my twin, my sister, my best friend… was… I couldn't even think the word. In the hospital I wore special hospital clothes, and they´d washed my clothes, the same clothes I wore when… well you know.

"Why is there a big hole in your hoodie?" Tee asked, Mike had walked downstairs again.

"I don´t want to talk about it."

"I can sew it, if you like."

"Doesn´t matter, I´ll throw this in the bin, as soon as I have something else to wear."  
"Why?"  
"You wouldn´t understand."

**Well, as you´ve probably, there are no country called Gota, and no city called Lulei. I just made it up. **


	4. Identical

"SOPHIA" I heard a voice scream down the hallway.

"Yes," I opened the door. It was Gus.

"You´ve gotta be ready for my tour now." Stan came up the stairs, ran past Gus and through the hallway. Then I heard a door slam.

"What´s going on?" I asked Tee.

"We´ve all have to be in our rooms when Gus has his tour, you better go with him."

"Yeah, " I walked with Gus down to the cellar.

"This is the cellar" Gus said. "Here is where all the old things, no one wants anymore ends up. It´s very dusty in here." We continued to the first floor.

"This is the lounge, we sit here and when we play games, or use the computer." Then it continued, quiet room, office, kitchen, and upstairs.

"This is Carmen´s room." he opened a door to the left. "Carmen likes the color pink. Lily stays in here when she has respite care." We went out of that room, and to a room on the opposite side to i

"This is Shawn´s room. Shawn is best friends with Harry." And it continued, Harry´s giraffe room, Tee´s very colorful room, Jody´s room where a posters with pictures of tigers and bears hung on the walls. I didn´t care much about any of the rooms, until the last one.

"This is Stan´s and Joe´s room They´re identical twins."

"No way." I almost whispered. I took a couple of steps backwards, before turning around, and running down the hallway.

"Sophia stop, we haven´t finished my tour yet." I could hear Gus shout but I didn´t care about him, I ran down the stairs, where I bumped into Gina.

"Sophia what´s wrong?" She asked, the lights turned on, but I didn´t care about her. Without caring about the burning pain in my stomach, where I´d been shot, I ran past her and down the stairs to the cellar. When I was there I crouched behind some old boxes, breathing heavily. Twins, identical twins. What the hell? I was going to live with a couple of identical twins, why? I could hear someone coming down the stairs to the cellar.

"Sophia," it was Gina´s voice. "Sophia, what happened?" I was as quiet as I could, so she would go away. Then, suddenly, my stomach burned worse than ever, and I couldn´t help myself from moaning.

"Sophia," she squatted down in front of me. "Babes, what happened eh?"

"No…nothing." I stuttered. "I was just reminded of something, I want to forget."

"Are you ok? You looked very stressed out.

"Yeah, yeah I´m fine," I lied, and tried to stand up. Almost immediately I fell to the ground again, moaning, with my arm around my stomach.

"Are you ok babes?"

"yeah I´m fine." I croaked, "just go. Please just go." Gina turned around and walked up the stairs, stupid as I was, I thought she´d left. But after less than a minute, she came back. With Mike.

"Let´s see," Mike said. "What happened here?"

"Go, just go." I croaked. I managed to get up on my knees. With one hand on the floor, and the other still around my stomach. I putted one foot against the floor, then the other one. Mike rushed to my side grabbed my arm, and putted it around his own shoulders, and slowly I managed to stand up, on my own two feet. I tried to breath slowly, and felt the pain ease a bit. I tried to take a step.

"Steady now," Mike said. "One step at the time, that´s it." Slowly I went up the stairs and to mine and Tee´s room.

"What happened?" Tee asked aghast.

"Nothing." I said and laid down on my bed. "Just, don´t ask."


	5. Flashback and clothes

"Maybe, we should call an ambulance," Tee said to Mike and Gina. "If she´s in so much pain."

"No," I said "there´s no need for an ambulance. Just leave me alone, please."

"Come on, Tee," I could hear Mike´s voice, "we´ll leave her alone for a minute."

And there I laid, with my arms around my stomach, crouched, and my back towards the room. Slowly the pain began to ease a bit. I wanted to cry, but I couldn´t. Actually I hadn´t cried at all for Sophie, nothing. I just felt all empty and weird. Like I had gotten a big part of my soul ripped away from me. And actually, that was also the case. Sophie had been a big part of me. We had not only looked very like each other, so sometimes we could fool people that Sophie was me and she was Sophia. We could always have a great laugh by that, but. Sophie was so much more than just that. She had always been there for me, and I´d always been there for her, no matter what. Her shoulder was the one I cried onto when Luce, our brother had to disappear. At the same time that she cried onto my shoulder.

I shook my head, I just wanted to forget it all. Forget I´d ever had a sister, or a brother. Actually I didn´t know if Luce was alive either, he was on the run from the police.

**Flashback**

"Luce, what´s wrong?" I asked. When my brother bursted into the room, with tears streaming down his face.

"I have to get out of here." He said.

"Why?" Me and Sophie asked at the same time.

"Look, Sophia, and Sophie. You know, I helped some children and teenagers to get out of Gota, because of the war."

"Have the police found out?" I almost whispered And he nodded. He bent forward and kissed, first me and then Sophie lightly on the forehead.

"I´ll always love you guys. Always remember that." Then he turned around, and ran out the door.

**End of flashback. **

I sighed and shook my head again; I just wanted to forget it all. Now, Luce had been gone for six months. And actually, I was proud of him. He had helped so many children, from a destiny that´s spelled D-E-A-T-H. I sat up in my bed, and stood up. I could as well walk downstairs again, otherwise, I was just going to lay here, remembering it all. I walked outside, and down the stairs. Then to the lounge, where most of the others were. Tee, Carmen, and Lily sat around a table, talking and Tee was sewing. Shawn and Harry were playing games, Stan and Joe played pool. And Tyler and Jody were watching TV. I sat down by the table with the girls.

"You´re Ok?" Tee asked.

"Yeah, I´m fine."

"Do you want me to sew that hole in your shirt?"

"Sure," I pulled the hoodie over my hoodie. "But I´ve already told you it doesn´t matter."

"Why not?" Carmen asked.

"Because I´m going to throw these clothes in the bin as soon as I have something else to wear."

"Why?" Carmen asked.

"Because, these clothes disgust me."

"I think I´ve got some old clothes that´d fit you." Lily said. "You can have them if you like."

"Lily," without me recognizing, Mike had come to stand behind me. "That´s a wonderful idea."

"Fine." She said. "I´ll go get ´em. Ya´ wanna come girls?" she looked at me, Tee and Carmen.

"yeah I´ll come," Carmen said.

"Sure," I said. stood up, and ripped my hoodie out of Tee´s hands. "There´s no need to sew that now." ´Together, all four of us, we went outside, and towards Lily´s.


	6. Plaster

We arrived at Lily´s, her dad wasn´t at home. So we went straight to a cupboard and Lily lifted out a box. Then we walked over to Lily´s room, and she placed the box on her bed, and opened it.

"Let´s see then." She turned the box upside down, and poured all the clothes in it out on her bed, some of them, ended up on the floor. Carmen and Tee started digging in the clothes.

"Try this hoodie," Tee threw me a black- grey cardigan with a pattern of purple roses.

"With these trousers," Carmen threw me a pair of purple jeans.

"And this T-shirt," Lily gave me a purple and white T-shirt.

"Where´s the bathroom?" I asked.

"Oh, don´t mind about that," Lily answered. "You can change clothes in here, dad´s not home so the only ones that´ll se you is me, Carmen and Tee."

"Ok," I sighed. "But then I want you to close your eyes, while I change T-shirt," I pulled my own hoodie over my head, and threw it at the floor, the same with my own pair of trousers and my T-shirt.

"Sophia?" Tee asked with her eyes still closed.

"Mhm," I answered while I pulled the jeans on.

"How old are you actually?"

"Thirteen, why?"

"I was just wondering…"

"You were wondering, if I´m just younger than I look like, or short for my age," I smiled, and pulled the T-shirt on, Tee blushed. "You´re not the first one wondering, my length makes me look like, eleven or something. You can open your eyes now." The girls opened their eyes and looked at me.

"Those clothes looks really good on you." Carmen said. "What do you think?"

"I like them." I answered. "They´re comfortable."

"Then they´re yours." Lily started digging in the bunch of clothes again, and she pulled out a long, grey, knitted cardigan. "Try this too." This kept on for a while, I changed clothes what felt like, one hundred and eleven times, but were probably just about eight. And every time I changed T-shirt, I told the girls to close their eyes. I didn´t want them to see, and ask about the plaster, on the side of my stomach. I didn´t want to talk about it, didn´t wanna think about it, I just wished I could forget it all about that day.

Then something went completely wrong. We had left the door to Lily´s room, just a little bit open. And we could hear Lily´s dad come home.

"Hiya dad." Lily shouted, with her eyes closed

"Hi Lily I didn´t thought you would come home so ear…ly." The door opened, exactly as I had pulled a T- shirt over my head, I turned my back against the door, but the girls had looked up when Lily´s dad came into the room, as quickly as I could I tried to unfold the T- shirt in my hands, and I pulled it over my head.

"Sophia," Carmen began. "What happened to your stomach, you have a big plaster there?"

"Oh, have I?" I said ironic. "I didn´t know that."

"Dad," Lily began. "This is Sophia, she arrived at Elm Tree House this morning, I thought she could have some of my old clothes, because she doesn´t have more than one change of clothes herself."

"yeah that´s fine, I´m Steve Kettle by the way, Lily´s dad."

"Sophia Atkins," I mumbled.

"Just keep on what you did before I came in," Steve closed the door and left.

"What happened to your stomach?" Carmen asked again.

"I don´t want to talk about it." I pulled the T- shirt over my head, and threw it back in the box. "Is there something else I can try on?"

"I don´t think so," Lily said. I started convoluting the clothes, putting the clothes, I didn´t want, back in the box, and the clothes I wanted in a rucksack, Lily had gotten. I pulled on the purple jeans and the long, grey knitted cardigan. I lifted my own clothes up from the floor. No, I wasn´t going to throw them in the bin, not just yet.


	7. Nightmares

**In the middle of the night**

"It´s your fault." Sophie stood in front of me, with blood all over her shirt and face. "You should have died."

"Sophie I´m sorry, please forgive me, please." She didn´t listen to my begging, she just turned around and started to walk away from me, I tried to run after her, but my Legs wouldn´t move.  
"Sophie, no. Sophie please. Sophie I love you, please don´t leave me."

"I hate you." I could hear Sophie´s voice from all directions. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate…"

"Sophia, Sophia wake up, it´s ok. It´s just a dream. " With a scream, I sat up in my bed. Tee sat next to me, and the lights were turned on. Soon, we could both hear the thunder of running footsteps running down the hallway. The door to our room, opened, and Mike came in, with the whole care home after him.

"What happened?" he asked.

"She started screaming." Tee began. "She shouted Sophie, Sophie, don´t leave me, over and over again."

"Who´s Sophie? I could hear Stan´s voice, or was it Joe´s?"

"Kids," Mike turned around. "Bed now." The others started turning around, and soon we could hear slamming with doors.

"Sophia, you´re coming with me downstairs."

"But I´m fine. I just wanna go back to sleep."

"Ok, in the morning then." Mike turned around and turned off the lights, Tee walked back to her bed, and then the door closed. I laid back in my bed, with my face towards the wall. I was shaking, but I didn´t cry. And it took me a long while to fall asleep again. And when I did it, it was a night full of nightmares of men with guns, and gunshots that came from nowhere.

"Who´s Sophie?" Stan asked, when we came downstairs for breakfast in the morning.

"No one." I mumbled.

"And you scream her name in your dreams?" Joe asked. "I don´t think that´s no one."

"I don´t wanna talk about it, Johnny can you pass me the cereal?" I changed subject and started eating, before someone had the chance to ask anymore. Afterwards, I went straight up to my room. I dressed in the pair of jeans, and the same grey cardigan, I had used yesterday, and then I went to the bathroom. When I came downstairs again, Gina had arrived.

"Hi babes," she began. "Had a good night´s sleep yeah?" I shrugged and sat down in the sofa under the stairs.

"Good, Sophia." Mike came around the corner. "Can you come with me to the office please?" I looked up at him.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really," he smiled. And I followed him to the office.

"Sophia…" he began. "What happened tonight made me a bit concerned. And Tee told me that you slept very badly after we had gotten back to sleep. She told me, that she woke up several times, by the sound of you saying the name "Sophie" in your sleep."

"Where do you wanna come?" I asked.

"Look. I can´t force you to say anything, but the fact remains, if you don´t tell us what´s going on. We can´t help you."

"Do you wanna know who Sophie is?" I asked. The door to the office opened, and Gina came in.

" If you wanna tell us." Mike said.

"Sophie´s my sister. " Mike got that, worried- adult look on his face, but I didn´t care about it.

"Can I go now?"

"Are you going to tell us something else about yourself?"

"No, I´m not telling you anything else. And you´re not telling anyone else about me having a sister." I stood up and started walking towards the door.

"Of course I won´t. By the way." Mike began and I turned around. "Your sister… Sophie, is she back in Gota?"

"No," I answered. "She´s not." Before Mike had the chance to ask anything else, I walked out of the door and to the living room.


	8. Say it out loud

I sat down by the small table, in the lounge. I picked up a paper, and a black pen, and started drawing. I didn´t think about what I was drying, I just let the pen float over the paper, and was brought back to reality when I heard Tyler´s voice behind me.

"Wow, look at that. You´re a really good drawer." I looked at the drawing, and what I saw, it scared me. I had drawn a picture of a girl, she sat with her back against a wall, on the ground. With her knees pulled up in front of her, she held her forehead just behind her knees. And the little I could see of her face was distorted of crying. She held her hands pressed against her ears, to suppress the sound of the chimeras.

"Guys," Tyler turned around towards the others. "Come check this out."

"NO" I shouted, I took the paper, and pressed it against my chest, running out of the room. Where I bumped into Mike, and lost my drawing.

"I think you should look where you´re running." Mike smiled. "It´s the second time in two days you bump into someone." He bent down and picked the drawing, before I had the chance to rip it out of his hands he looked at it.

"You´re a really good…. Drawer."

"Give it to me," I ripped it out of his hands. "Why can´t everyone just leave me alone."

"What´s wrong?"

"Nothing´s wrong." I lied. "Just leave me alone." I turned around and ran up the stairs.

"Sophia, Sophia." Mike tried. But I didn´t listen, I just kept running and ran to mine and Tee´s room. Tee wasn´t there, so I sat down on the floor, I realized I still had the pen in my hand, so I turned the paper, and on the empty side, I started drawing and writing. I drawn, black shadows that came from every direction. I wrote "Sophie" when I had finished drawing, and wrote, every sad sentence I could think of. Later on, I took the paper, and putted it in an empty plastic box I found in a shelf, then I putted it under my bed, with the clothes I had wore when I came here.

"Sophia, can I come in?" I could hear Mike knocking the door; I stood up and made sure the box couldn´t be seen from the door. Then I sat down on my bed.

"You´re ok?" he leaned against the wall.

"Why wouldn´t I be?" I tried to seem imperturbable. "I mean, I lost my sister recently, and yesterday I came to a whole new place to live here."

"Lost…" Mike looked worried.

"Oh, did I say that out loud?"

"DINER." We could hear from the kitchen.

"You´re not telling anyone about this, UNDERSTAND?" I fizzled.

"I´m not allowed to tell anyone about it, if you don´t want me to." Mike opened the door and I walked after him to the kitchen.

**Ok, I know it´s short. Let´s not care about that.**


	9. Football

**I´m really, really sorry for not updating this in such a long while. But these last few weeks have been really… well, how should I say it? Tough? And when it was final over, my dad told me something else, that really hit me like a bomb. But now I´ve solved that too. And everything´s back to normal. **

"Looks like it´s a storm coming!" Mike leaned over the kitchen bench and looked out the window, while I helped him drying the dishes. I turned around and looked out the window.

"Probably," I had never been afraid of thunder. I didn´t expect it to be so bad. So I just kept on doing the dishes.

"Can I go now?" I asked when we were done.

"Yeah sure, have fun." I walked out of the door to the garden. I had never understood what was so fun about sitting in front of a TV, or a computer a whole afternoon. In Gota, we had amused ourselves with drawing, reading, dancing, singing, football and other stuff you didn´t need any electricity for. A memory popped up in my head.

**Flashback**

"Sophia." Sophie passed me the football Luce tried to catch it before me, but I was faster than him. Then he came running after me and lifted me up. He hung me over his shoulder so I had my head, upside down on his chest.

"No, Luce. LUCE" I tried to scream, but I laughed too much to scream anymore. Luce ran after the ball, and I could see Sophie, almost collapsing of laughter. Luce kicked the ball into our home- made goal.

"SCORE" He shouted and pulled me down from his shoulder, with my back against his arm, and my legs hanging over his other arm, he ran around the garden with me in his arms.

"ONE POINT FOR LUCE ATKINS, AND NONE FOR THE TWINS." He shouted.

"You CHEATER." I shouted and started knocking his shoulders and chest with my fists. He squatted down, lay me down and started tickling me. Sophie came running and started tickling me.

"NO LUCE… NO SOPHIE…" I gasped. When I laughed so much I could barely breathe.

**End of flashback**

"Sophia, pass the ball" Stan´s voice reached my head, as the football, Stan, Joe, Johnny and Tyler had been playing with, came rolling towards me. I stopped it with my foot. And looked back at Stan and the others.

"You deaf or something?" Stan said. "Pass the ball." I smiled a little, and said.

"Only if you can catch it first." I started dribbling with the ball on the ground. Stan started running after me. But I was faster than him, so I ran away easily.

"But come on then Stan." Joe shouted. "You can´t let a girl win over you."

"Come on and help me then." Stan sounded out of his breath. "And you´ll see how easy it is." I turned my head, when I could see Johnny coming from my right. I dribbled again, and ran towards the goal.

"SCORE." I had shooted the ball in the goal, I stretched my arms in the air and wheeled. Not caring about how much I would hurt.

"Oh, but come on. I let you do that." Stan sounded really angry. "Come on Joe, we go watch TV or something." They turned around and walked towards the house. Johnny and Tyler walked after them.

I could feel some raindrops falling on my face, and looked up at the sky, where dark clouds were starting to loom. I shrugged, and started dribbling with the ball again.

**Mike´s pov**

"You got beaten by a GIRL." Stan and Joe came walking into the kitchen.

"I told you, I let her win."

"Who?" I asked.

"Sophia," Joe answered. "She´s actually quite good." Joe answered and the boys sat down by the table. When we could hear thunder from outside. I looked out the window, and saw that the lightning had hit a tree in the garden.

"Sophia," I almost whispered, turned around. Jumped down the stairs outside and towards the garden.

"Sophia," I came around the corner. "Sophia are you ok?"


	10. Thunder

**Sophia´s point of view**

"BOOM" the sound of thunder reached my ears. It was really close. But I still didn´t care about it. Until I saw, that one of the trees was on fire.

"MIKE" I ran towards the house. "Mike, one of the trees is on fire." I saw the door open and close, and Mike came running.

"Sophia" he shouted.

"Mike, one of the trees is one fire." I shouted. But he didn´t seem to hear me, strange! I stood in front of him. And then, something really weird happened. He ran right through me, and kept on running towards the part of the garden, were I had been dribbling with the football.

"Oh dear, oh god, oh god." I whispered, before running after Mike.

"Sophia, are you ok?" he shouted, and ran around the corner. Where he stopped, for one second. So I had the time to catch up, and then I saw, what he saw. My body, my own body, laid motionless on the ground. Mike stormed to me, or was it me, I stood behind him.

I looked up a little, and then I saw a light. It was so bright, and in the middle of it, someone was standing.

"Sophie," I whispered. "Sophie?" The person, stepped out a bit of the light, and then I could see that it really was Sophie.

"Sophie what´s going on?" I asked. "Sophie… am I dead?"

"Yes." She said. "But not for long."

"What do you mean not for long?"

"It´s not your time… not yet."

I felt like I was pulled backwards, and I could see Sophie turn around and walk into the light again.

"NO SOPHIE" I shouted. "Please let me come with you. Please, please." Then it all went all black. I don´t know for how long it took, before I coughed and breathed in deeply, before opening my eyes.

"I saw Sophie." Was the first thing I said. "I saw Sophie." I could hear the sound of someone standing up behind me. And Mike leaned over the back of the sofa I laid in.

"Good morning." He said. "How you´re feeling?"

"You scared the hell out of us." I turned my head a little, and saw that everyone else from The dumping ground stood in front of the sofa. Stan was the one who had been talking.

"I saw Sophie." I said once again, and tried to sit up. But Mike put his hand on my shoulder, and forced me to lay down again.

"Lay still," he said. "Gina´s calling an ambulance and you´re not moving until it gets here."

"I saw Sophie." I said again.

"What?" Tee asked. "Who´s Sophie?"

"She told me I was dead, but that it wasn´t my time yet."

"Scary." Joe whispered.

"Mhm." Stan agreed.

"The ambulance is on its way." Gina came into the lounge. I could hear another boom from thunder outside, but it wasn´t as close this time. Then something flashed before eyes, and it started to come back to me.

I dribbled with the football, but by mistake, I kicked it to hard and it disappeared in the woods. I jogged there, and laid my hand at a tree for support, while I bent down to pick up the football.

"BOOM"

Pain streaming through my body, and then, everything was quiet.

"I remember now." I gasped.

"Remember what?" Stan asked.

"I laid my hand on a tree, and thunder…"

"You must have had your hand on the tree the thunder hit." Joe said. "Or what do you think Mike?"

"I think… that Sophia´s very lucky to be alive."


	11. No reactions

"This… is amazing." The doctor said, I was attached to a monitor and checked my EKG, after being hit by a lightning. The doctor continued. "This is amazing. But everything seems normal. It seems to me like you survive without any damage."

"Well…" I began. "I didn´t, I died, and then Mike did…"

"Yeah, I know, but still… I mean, first you survived being shot, and then this."

"Shot?" Gina began, she had come with me to the hospital, and now sat in a chair beside the bed I laid in. "What happened? … Were everyone ok?"

"Shut up." I said. "I don´t wanna talk about it, and you´re not telling anyone else about it… not even Mike or Melanie."

"Okay… okay." Gina seemed a bit confused, but I guessed that it wasn´t so unusual about her.

"Yeah about that," the doctor sat down in a chair next to the bed. "I´d like to check that wound of yours,"

"Do you have to?"

"No, but you are gonna check it before you go home anyway, could as well do it now," he put his glasses on his nose, and started to pick some stuff from a locker, I sighed and turned to Gina.

"You can go home," I said. "Go back to the DG I mean, I don´t need you here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Call if you need anything."

"Yeah." Gina walked away and I laid my head down on the bed.

"Why couldn´t I just have died?" I thought. "Then I would be with Sophie now, and with mum, and dad, and Aaron." I sighed. Actually, I didn´t wanna die, but somehow it felt like, if I had lost Sophie what had I then got to live for.

"Does this wound hurt you anything, with the painkillers you got."

"It hurts when I move."

"Yeah, I´ll give you some stronger painkillers, so that you´re gonna be able to do, almost whatever you want without being in pain." He grabbed a notebook and pain from his chest pocket and wrote something. "Go with this… to the drugstore," he ripped out a paper from the notebook. "and give it to someone who works there. You won´t have to pay for it, and you´ll get some stronger painkillers. We don´t want you to be in pain do we?"

"No painkillers heal a broken heart" I mumbled.

"Pardon?" the doctor looked up, he had started to rip of the plaster from my stomach.

"Nothing."

"Look, Sophia." The doctor sat down on the edge of the bed. "I know what happened back in Gota, and I know you´re going through a rough time now. I want you to know that if you want to; I can talk with the physiologists at this place, and get you a time to talk with them."

"No."

"Loads of people go to them, and say it feels a lot better afterwards."

"I said NO" I turned my head and looked him in the eyes. "It doesn´t make any sense, it´s not like it would bring Sophie back." The doctor nodded slightly, and then stood up and continued to clean the wound on my stomach.

That night I had nightmares again. But it was different from before. This time, I stood in the door frame looking into a room; I tried to walk into the room, but my legs wouldn´t move. Inside the room was five people I knew as the back on my hand, everyone had dark, almost black hair. The boys hair were short and spiky, and the woman and the girl had straight hair down to their wastes. Though they were pale, they all stood with their backs towards me. The one to the left, was a boy, about two years old.

"Aaron," I said. "Aaron" But he didn´t turn around and look at me. I looked over to the next person in the row. A tall- grown man in his later forty´s.

"Dad?" I tried. "Dad?" No reaction, I looked over to the next person. A woman, about the same age as the man before.

"Mum?" I tried. "Mum, please." No reaction. I looked over to the next person, a muscular man, about nineteen or twenty years old.

"Luce" I tried. "Luce? There´s only you and me now, I need you more than ever." No reaction. Over to the next, and the last person.

"Sophie?" I almost shouted. "Sophie… please, you and I were always best friends. Twins, sisters and best friends do you remember? You can´t leave me now. I need you more than ever." I heard a ticking, and the worst happened. Something exploded, and I was pushed backwards, when I got back on my feet, I felt the door. But it was locked.

"NO" I screamed. "NO, SOPHIE, LUCE, MUM, DAD, AARON."

"Sophia," someone had grabbed my shoulders and was now shaking me. "Sophia wake up, it´s just a nightmare." My eyes flew open, I was soaking wet of sweating, and the doctor stood and leaned over my bed.

"You´re ok?" he asked.

"I´m fine." I mumbled and laid back, and tried to relax, I pretended that I was sleeping. But I could hear that the doctor was still there.

"I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better." He sighed after a while, and then left. I sighed and opened my eyes, rolled over to my back and put my hands under my head. I sighed again, why wasn´t I able to cry? I wanted to, I knew crying was the only thing that maybe, could make everything feel a little bit easier. But I couldn´t. But deep in, I knew why I didn´t cry, I knew it exactly.


	12. ABC

**I am so, so sorry. To make the long waiting up to you, I´m like. Updating all of my stories at the same time. **

**To make a long story short, I´ve had a lot to do at school. **

When I came home with Gina the next day, me Gina and Mike were the only ones at the dumping ground. But I didn´t care about them, I just went straight through the hallway, and went to the lounge. Where I sat down in the sofa, with my back against one edge of the sofa, and my legs up on the seat. With one leg stretched out, and one sole against the seat.

"SOPHIA," I could hear Mike´s voice echo through the house.

"IN HERE" I shouted back. And he entered the room.

"Hey, you´re ok?" he sat down on the opposite side of the table.

"Why wouldn´t I be?"

"Just wondering, hey. I just wondered if I could ask you some questions, about. Before you came here?"

"No." I mumbled.

"I… actually think I´ll have to do it anyway." He patted my shoulder. "Let´s start with the easier questions huh?"

"I don´t mind."

"Well, the first thing. Do you have a cellphone or something, so we can reach you when you´re not at home."

"Don´t have, never had."

"I´d guessed that already." Mike reached me a cell. "It´s nothing, very modern or something. It´s actually my old one." He smiled a little. "But, it´s got all the numbers to the others here at TDG, including me Gina and Melanie. Not Harry or Shawn though, they´re too little." I nodded a bit, and started pressing the buttons.

"Mike?" I asked, a bit insecure. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"You know… I came here because of someone that, that… hurted me because they were looking for someone I know. And I couldn´t answer them. So, if I save someone´s number in this." I held the phone up. "Is it possible… I mean. Is it possible that someone from Gota…"

"That they track it, and find either you or this person."

"Yes."

"Sophia," he took a grip of my shoulders, and looked me in the eyes. "You´re safe here, we´re not gonna let anything bad happen to you."

"But what about… the other person."

"I don´t think there´ll be a risk, just by saving the number. But I don´t think you should call it."

"I didn´t mean I would call it" I said. "I would never take such a risk. But… could you show me how I save it in my phone."

" Well, first, you press the right number." I did as I was told. "Then you press there, and you write the name of the one who owns the number." I nodded. And pressed in L-U-C-E in the phone, I saved it and put the phone in my pocket.

"Was there anything more you wanted to ask?" I asked Mike just as Gina entered the room, and sat down next to Mike.

"Yeah, we wondered, where you come from…"

"Gota?"

"Yes, Gota…. Ehrm, do girls go to school there."

" Some of them do, not everyone. The ones who have older siblings don´t. then it doesn´t matter if the younger sibling is a girl or a boy."

"Do you have an older, sister or brother?"

"Yes."

"So, I guess that he or she…"

"He."

"Yes, I guess that he taught you, maths and English…"

"Where do you wanna come?"

"What I wanna say is that here in England, every child and teenager has to go to school up to a certain age."

"Okay."

"And you haven´t reached that age yet." Mike leaned forward a bit. "Sending you to school now wouldn´t really matter, there´s only two weeks left of the year. But, if you want to, I could ask Carmen´s, Lily´s and Tyler´s teacher, I could ask them if it´s ok that you go there with them tomorrow. To see how things work at school."

"Sure." I mumbled, even though I didn´t really want to.

"Fine," he stood up. "I´ll go call the school." He stood up and walked out of the room. I sighed. And leaned backwards, I thought back seven years back in time, when Luce started teaching me and Sophie the alphabet, and easy maths.

**Flashback**

"A-B-C, easy as ONE TWO THREE" Me, Sophie and Luce sang as loud as we could. Mum and dad were singing along to. Mum sat with Aaron on her lap. And even though he was too small to know the lyrics, he were happily clapping his hands, and laughing he´s cute toddler- laugh.

"Sophie what is one plus two?" Luce, who back then was the age of sixteen.

"THREE" Sophie screamed.

"Sophia what is two plus two."

"FOUR" I shouted.

"Sophie, which letter comes after B."

"C" Sophie shouted.

"Sophia, which letter is this?" he draw an A on a paper and showed it to me.

"A" I shouted.

"YAY" he shouted back. "That´s absolutely right. And A´s are what you two are gonna get as grades on this lesson. YAY."

**End of flashback. **

"Sophia? Sophia?" Mike´s voice reached my head and I looked up.

"Yeah?"

"I said that you´re going to school with the others tomorrow…. What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing." I mumbled.

"You seemed so far away."

"I said nothing." Mike nodded, and then they both walked out of the room.

I sighed, at that time, that that memory had been reality. Neither me nor Sophie had known what it meant to have an A as a grade. But I didn´t really cared, the memory was one of my happiest ones. And I loved it.

**You know guys, I really enjoy writing those flashbacks. They´re far more happy and such then the rest of the story. **

**So, in the next chapter, things are gonna start happening. With Sophia I mean, I know it may be moving on a bit too fast. But it´s that, otherwise this story will never move forward, and the chapters will be boring for me to write, and at least as boring for you to read, so. You´ll just have to go with it. **

**So, six chaps for my update-all-of-my-stories-at-the-same-time-project. One left.**


	13. Let me cry

The next day was a Tuesday, and that was the day I was supposed to go with the others to school. But when I woke up, I just didn´t wanna get out of bed.

"Sophia." Melanie came into the room, this was the third time she tried to get me up. "Get up now, you´re going to school today remember?"

"I don´t want to," I mumbled.

"What´s going on?" Mike came into the room too and sat down on my bed. I rolled over and looked straight into the wall.

"Just leave me alone," I said. "I´ll go another day."

From that day on, and a week forward, I changed. I barely left mine and Tee´s room at all. I almost stopped eating, and I barely talked to anyone. Mike tried to ask me things, about why I was doing this, and if I could tell him what was going on, Gina tried, Melanie tried, Tee, Carmen and Lily tried. But I still just laid on my bed, staring straight into the wall. I came up just a few times a day, and when the others were eating I was just pushing food back and forth on the plate. But I still wasn´t crying.

_Let me cry  
Everything is gonna feel so much better then  
Let me be sad  
And I´m gonna be happy again_

I just couldn´t understand why, I hadn´t cried at all since that day we both got shot. Though I had always thought that crying was a bit weak, that it would be emberrasing to show others I was hurt, that I was falling. I now understood that crying in front of others, or crying at all, was a sign of being strong for a very, very long time. But now I just couldn´t cry, no matter how much I tried.

_Let me be weak  
I can´t always be the strongest one around  
Let me fall  
But catch me before I hit the ground_

I felt like if I ever laughed or even smiled again, I would let Sophie down. Because that would be me being ok with that she was dead, and I didn´t wanna be alright with it, I didn´t wanna laugh without her, I didn´t even wanna cry without her shoulder to cry one, while I thought back on a poem we had written together, only a couple of days before she died.

_Let me laugh  
And I would like you to laugh too  
But let me have your shoulder to cry on  
Because I can´t do this without you _

How was I gonna make this without Sophie?

"I´m getting tired of this." Mike said, when I had just been laying in my bed for a week. "You are going with the others to school today and that´s it."

"I don´t want to." I mumbled.

"You´re going anyway. Come on, get up." I sighed, and realized I had no choice, so I sat up and made myself ready to go to school with the others.

**Three hours later, maths lesson. **

"Mr. Morrison." Tyler raised his hand and shouted for the maths teacher to get some help.

"Hold on a minute, I just gotta help Derek first. I leaned against the wall, I had jumped up on some low lockers by the wall in the classroom, and sat there through half the maths but now, when Tyler needed help I stood up, leaned against his bench and looked at what he was doing.

"Can I lend your pen?" I asked. "This is easy, you just, move that one over there, add three to fourteen, and then… voila, the answers twenty one."

"Good job Sophie," Mr. Morrison came to Tyler´s bench. "That´s right. It is Sophie is it?"

"NO." I screamed, I ran over to the book shelves by the wall, pushed down a row of books and grabbed the thickest and heaviest books I could reach.

"Sophie what do you think you´re do…" Mr. Morrison ducked under a bench when I threw the English word-list towards him.

"I am not SOPHIE" I shouted, and then I ran, I ran out of the classroom, and out of the school. I didn´t stop, I didn´t even know where I was running. But without my knowledge, my feet were carrying me back to the dumping ground.

**So, that poem, is mine. The original is called "låt mig få gråta" (let me cry) And it got five verses with four rows in each, but I couldn´t get the two other parts to rhym when I turned the poem into English, it just went. **

**Let me be afraid  
I can´t always be brave  
Let me dwell  
SO I can understand what´s happened**

Let me be angry  
I can´t control what I´m feeling  
Let me shout  
Without us to getting foes

**Not really rhyming huh? **


	14. I am not Sophie

**I´m so sorry**

**But, this is my last chapter for "updating one story a day, to have them all published in 2013- project" This week, I´m gonna start to update my stories as usual. **

**And you know what day it is today? It´s eleven months since I stopped taking my meds. HURRAY, hip, hip HURRAY **

I kept on running towards the dumping ground, still without knowledge of where I was running. But then, I stumbled and I fell down on my knees, with my hands over my ears, trying to ease the sound from Sophie´s voice, and shots and sound of exploding bombs that came from nowhere. I was crying, but it didn´t feel as comforting as I thought it would. Just as I fell down on my knees, a couple, probably in their younger seventies were coming walking from the other direction.

"Honey, are you ok" the woman bent down over me.

"I´m not Sophie…. I´m not Sophie." I cried over and over again.

**Flashbacks**

"No…. NO." Sophie ran towards the door, I tried to catch her… but I wasn´t fast enough, a shot rang out, and Sophie fell to the ground…

…. GET DOWN," Luce ran into the kitchen, pulled down me and Sophie under the kitchen table, where he wrapped his arms around us…."

…. "We´ve already shot your dad"…

… "WHAT´S HAPPENING?" Sophie shouted when Luce had pulled us down under the table, barely had she finished the question, when the sound of an explosion rang out. Sophie screamed, and we could hear the ceiling in the living room/ that was also used as a bedroom for us crashing in….

…"I don´t know." I whispered, and then I heard another shot ring out…

…"Dad" Luce lifted a board from the collapsed ceiling, so dad could sit up, he coughed, from the dust that he was breathing in. But he seemed ok.

"Areen… Aaron" he coughed. "They were in here."

"MUM." Sophie shouted, when she saw mum´s hand sticking out, of what seemed like most part of the living room- wall. She ran to it, so did I and Luce. And together we managed to lift the wall of not only mum, but also our two year old brother, Aaron…

… "No… Sophia," Luce held me back. "There´s nothing you can do… they´re…

"They´re not dead," I shouted back. "THEY CAN´T BE!"…

**End of flashbacks. **

"Honey," the old lady continued. "Are you ok?" The man tried to put his hand on my shoulder, and then I seemed to wake up. I jumped up on my feet, though I had scratched both of my knees, and there were blood and ripped skin seen through holes in my jeans, I started to run again, and I didn´t stop more times.

"You should have DIED." I could hear Sophie´s voice. "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU."

**Mike´s point of view**

The phone rang in the office, and I ran to catch it.

"Hello." I said. Just as Gina walked into the office.

"Hey, it´s Tyler… Sophia… Sophie…. Mr. Morrison… ran." Tyler talked so fast I could only hear a few words.

"Whoa, Tyler, slow down." I said. "Take a deep breath and then tell me what´s happening."

"Our teacher, Mr. Morrison, he called Sophia by the wrong name… Sophie, and then she started throwing things at him, before she shouted, I am not Sophie, and then she ran away, and we can´t find her anywhere in the school building."

"Ok, Tyler." I tried to seem calmer than I actually was. "Just stay where you are. I´ll drive around this place to see if I can find her." I hung up.

"Mike… is everything ok man?" Gina asked me.

"Sophia´s run away from school." I walked out of the room with Gina following me. "I´ll take a drive, and see if I can find her. You stay here, in case she comes back here." I reached for the lock in the front door, but before I had the time to open the door, the door flew open and Sophia came running in.

"I am not Sophie," she said, it was obvious that she was crying, and she had her hands pressed against her ears. "I am not Sophie, I am not Sophie, I am not Sophie."

"We know… we know." Gina tried, but Sophia didn´t seem to care…. Suddenly she stretched out her neck….

"AAAAAAH." She screamed , and fell down on her knees, next she laid on the floor, crouched and with her hands under her chin.

"I´m not Sophie." She mumbled. "I´m not Sophie…" then… everything went silent.

**Ok, I know it´s really, really short, but whatever. What do you think´s gonna happen now? I know. **

**Giving another hurray for the fact that I have been eleven months without meds. HURRAY **


	15. The past

**Mike point of view**

Me, Gina and Sophia had walked into the quiet room, Sophia sat down in the corner of one of the sofas, and pulled up her knees, then I saw the holes in her jeans, so I went to get the first- aid- kit. Afterwards I sat down in the sofa in front of Sophia, I took up paper balls and disinfections from the first-aid-kit, and poured the fluid on the paper.

"This is gonna sting a bit," I said before I put the paper ball to the ripped skin on Sophia´s knee. But she didn´t even blink. She was soaking wet of sweat, her hair laid flat against her head, and her cheeks and eyes were red and swollen of tears. Gina reached out her hand and pulled away the long hair- bangs, that were hanging down in Sophia´s face.

"I am not Sophie" Sophia mumbled again, and sniveled.

"We know that babes," Gina tried to comfort. "But… you know… if you told us who Sophie really is, and why you´re so upset, it would be easier for us to help you yeah?" Sophia nodded slightly. And then took a deep breath, before she started talking with a shaking voice.

"It… well, I guess it all started… when I was," I counted on my fingers… "about nine or ten years old…. I´m not sure how it started, the government pretty much kept that as secrets, but, then, this… war… I guess, it started… and… well, you know!" Sophia now seemed really nervous. "And well, my family… and our neighborhood, have more… well, things and money, and food and stuff, that most other families in Lulei has. And… well, then… one day, a… a bomb, it… it went of in the neighborhood… and… my brother ran into the kitchen, and pulled me and my sister Sophie down under the table… but when it went off, the roof in our living room, slash, mine, Sophie´s and our brothers´ bedroom came in. And mum, dad and Aaron was in there…. The biggest wall came down right on mum, who was holding Aaron, four years old And… well, I guess it crushed them. Dad was hurt too, but lived."

**Sophia point of view, flashback**

"GET DOWN" Luce ran into the kitchen, and pulled me and Sophie down under the heavy kitchen table.

"WHAT´S HAPPENING?" Sophie panicked, she had barely finished the sentence, before there was a loud BOOM, and the ground started shaking, as of an earthquake. Both I and Sophie screamed, but the sound of our screams drowned in the boom of the bomb, and we could hear the roof in the room next to us, coming down. I tried to get up to run into the room, where I knew mum, dad and Aaron were. But Luce pulled me down again, and he held his arms around me and Sophie, for another minute or two. Then he slowly crawled backwards to the floor where he could stand up, he helped me and Sophie up again as well, before the three of us ran to the door to the living room. I pulled the door towards us, and then jumped over all the rest of the walls and roof that was on the ground.

"Dad." I could hear Luce say and I turned around. He lifted a board of the collapsed ceiling, dad coughed, and croaked.

"Areen… Aaron… they were in here."

"MUM." Sophie shouted ad jumped over some boards to get to, what seemed like most of the living room wall, one of mum´s hands was seen under the boards. Together, I, Sophie and Luce managed to lift up most of the board that was holding mum and Aaron down. Immediately, Luce sat down on his knees, and felt on mum´s neck for a pulse, then he checked Aaron´s. Then he laid his hands on his knees, before sighing. He turned around towards us again, and slowly shook his head.

"No… NO." When Luce took a step forward to embrace me and Sophie. Hold us in his warm, big hug, as he always did, I screamed, and tried to come to mum, but Luce put one of his arms around my chest, and kept me from her.

"No, Sophia." He said calmly. "There´s nothing you can do… They´re…"

"They´re not dead." I shouted. "THEY CAN`T BE." I stopped when I heard Sophie sobbing behind me, I pulled Luce´s arm off me, and then embraced Sophie. Luce embraced us too, for a minute or two, and then he went to check on dad.

**Mike point of view**

"And when we came out in the street… all of the houses down the street were in pieces, and there were hurt people… and dead bodies… everywhere."

I can´t put in words how sorry I felt for Sophia at this time. Only a complete blind person would not be able to see the pain in her eyes, though I knew she was trying so hard to hide it. No one should see what she had seen, and lost people that she needed, when she was not even a teenager at the time.

"Then…. Well… you may be wondering why I refuse to say my brother´s name… the police is after my brother… my other brother… the one who pulled me and Sophie under the table… and… well, I maybe can tell you, but you can´t… you can´t tell anyone else, not even if they´re asking."

"Sophia," I bent forward and took her hand in mine. It was so small in my big hand. "You´re safe here, you telling us your brother´s name, it´ll change nothing, and of course, we won´t tell anybody."

"It´s Luce." Sophia almost whispered, as if she was afraid that if she said it out loud, someone that was listening outside the door or the window, would hear.

"Well, my brother… Luce.. he, he helped children and teenagers to get out of Gota, to save countries, like, Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, and the rest of Europe who hasn´t got a war going on. Of course it was good, but he kept it a secret, because if the police and the government found out, they would want to kill him, literally, and then, they found out, Luce got to know about it, and he ran away. About six months before I got here, and then… the police came to our house…and then… they shot dad, I and Sophie heard the shot, but didn´t care much about it. Then they came into the house, and then, they asked me and Sophie were Luce is, and we told the truth, we didn´t knew. When we said that, one of the gunmen said that they´d already shot our dad; Sophie tried to run outside to get to him, and… I…" tears were now streaming down Sophia´s face. "I tried to stop her… and then… a shot rang out… and she just fell… and then, they asked me, and then… they shot me. The last thing I can remember is trying to wake Sophie up, and a man from the neighborhood running into our house… The next thing I remember, is ending up here." Sophia stopped talking, and it went all quiet.

During my many years as a care- worker, I´d heard loads, and loads of tragic stories. I had helped loads and loads of children to get over their tragic past, but never, never had I heard anything, not near Sophia´s tragic story. And I knew that there was nothing I could to fix her.

**So, well, I´m satisfied with this, I really am, what do you think? **


	16. Sleeping

**So, this chapter will be written in third person, I usually don´t write that way, but now it´s the best way to do it. **

**I´ve had to change Aaron´s ago from two to four, when I realized he was in one of Sophia´s earliest flashbacks, (chap, ABC) as a toddler, and that was when Sophia was about six years old… well, you get it. **

**Dear guest, ehrm, no I don´t think there´s a chance that Sophia will date one of the twins… I mean… come on… they hate each other. There´s a chance that they may not be just as much enemies as they are right now after a while, but no shipping between Sophia/Twin is gonna turn up. **

The front door opened, and all of the residents of Elm Tree House came walking into the dumping ground. Sophia, who still sat in the sofa in the quiet room, looked up when she heard the door open.

"It´s fine," Mike stood up. "I´ll go talk to them," Sophia first looked like she wanted to protest, but she kept quiet and sat down in the sofa again. Mike smiled slightly at her, before he turned around and walked out the door out in the hallway.

"Where´s Sophia?" Tyler asked when Mike came out in the hallway.

"Is she all right?" Tee asked.

"Why did she ran away when the teacher called her by the wrong name?" Carmen asked.

"Why…"

"KIDS." Mike held up his hands to make the children be quiet, "kitchen, now."

"But why..?" Tyler began again.

"Sophia´s in the quiet room," Mike said. "She´s perfectly fine, go to the kitchen and I´ll explain as much as I can to you." The children turned around, and walked into the kitchen, with Mike after them, most of them sat down by the table, but Tee jumped up to sit on the kitchen table, and Stan and Joe sat down on the table. Mike stood behind the kitchen bench and started with gazing over the group.

"Sophia… she told me and Gina the whole story earlier. How she ended up here, and why she reacted so strong by being called by the wrong name. But she made it very clear for us both, that she didn´t want anyone else to know…"

"WHAT?" Jody shouted with anger in her voice. "Why n…" Mike held up his hands to make Jody be quiet and then continued.

"Look, I can tell you this, that there´s a risk, that Sophia may suffer from a bit of posttraumatic stress, so I don´t want anyone of you, to ask her, or talk about her life before she came here. Understand?" Mike gazed over the group with a strict look.

"What´s Post- rheumatic stress?" Jody asked.

"It´s post- traumatic stress Jody!" Rick turned his head to look at her, "and it´s something that you can get when you´ve lived through some sort of trauma, people that gets it. They get vigilant, and… well, let´s say that they get it after living in a war- zone. Then you can get really stressed out, just by hearing the sound of a bin falling, they would think it´s a gun- shot. Or of seeing someone with clothes, that similar to the clothes that the military wears."

"Yeah, but why would Sophia have it?" Carmen looked confused, first to Rick, and then to Mike.

"I think, that Sophia will tell you in her own time. But until then, I don´t want anyone to talk about it, or ask about it. Is that understood?" Mike gazed over the group again, and the kids nodded.

"Good"

**? pov**

Finally, after three weeks of searching, I held a paper with Sophia´s new address in my hand. I convoluted the paper, and put it in my pocket. Then I pulled the hoodie on my shirt over my head, I had a carton with some things I would send to Sophia, and I held it under my arm. Then I walked to the front door, and before walking out the door, I turned my head, and one last time, I looked into the house that had been my home, as long as I could remember. Then I ran out the door, I closed it, and then ran towards the mountains, where I would cross the land border to China, tonight.

**No one´s pov, back at the dumping ground, middle of the night. **

"No, Sophie," Sophia mumbled in her sleep, and her head moved back and forth. Tee sat up in her bed, and took her quilt, then she walked to Mike´s room, and knocked the door.

"Mike" she opened it. "MIKE."

"Yeah, yeah, what´s going on?" Mike sat drowsy up in his bed.

"Sophia´s having nightmares again!" Mike threw his quilt to the side, and walked across the floor to Tee.

"I´ll go check on her," he said to Tee. "Wait… where are you going?"

"To Johnny´s room." Mike sighed. But didn´t protest. Tee slightly knocked the door to Johnny´s room, before opening it, and laying down on the floor next to Johnny´s bed. Johnny reached her one of his pillows.

"Sophia´s having nightmares again," Tee mumbled drowsy. "She´s keeping me awake too."

**In the morning**

"But you need to put Sophia in an own room," Johnny complained to Mike. "She´s keeping Tee awake."

"Look Johnny, I would if I could, but right now, there is no spare room for her to move into. Rick´s leaving the first week at summer- holidays, she´ll move into that room after that, I promise."

"But there´s one week left, and Tee needs to sleep."

"I know Johnny, but…"

"Let Shawn move in with Harry then. They´re best friends anyway!"

"Johnny, I actually think sharing room with somebody is the best option for Sophia right now."

"Fine." Johnny said angry and walked out of the room angrily. Mike sighed, and laid his head down on the coffee cup.

**So, that´s it, I need to study now, I have a maths test tomorrow. **

**Have you guesses who that ?- boy is? **

**And, oh, just so you know, I´ve decided where on earth Gota is, it´s right in the land border between Nepal and China… more will turn up about that later. **


	17. Toy- gun

**So, hi! Stan and Joe are going to go mean. **

**Joe pov**

"Can you believe it bro´" Stan said and sat down on his bed, I nodded slightly, because I sat on my bed, back towards wall, trying to read, so I didn´t really listen to him.

"Come on, earth to Joe," Stan took a book from my bedside table, and before I had the time to react, he had hit it in my head, gosh, sometimes I really did not like my brother.

"Ouch, what was that for?" I threw the book I was reading at the bed in front of me, and looked up at Stan.

"You weren´t listening! I asked can you believe it?"

"Believe what?"

"That we have two hours of graduation tomorrow, and then no school for six weeks."

"Mhm, not really."

"But come on," Stan picked up the book to hit me in my head again, but this time I had the chance to react, and I pushed him away.

"What are you thinking about," Stan sat up on the floor. "You seem so far away."

"I am trying to find out which country Sophia comes from." I said.

"So, did you find something?"

"Nothing. Literally, nothing."

"You know there is about 200 to 250 countries in the world, do you Joe? And you´re searching in a book, to find out which country, one certain girl is from, I mean, what´s the odds that you could find the right country? I mean, Sophia… she´s got dark hair and dark eyes, like a Latin- American, she´s short, which is common in Asia…."

"… she does not look very Asian."

"I haven´t finished… and at the same time, she´s pale like a Scandinavian, and Mike says she´s got post- traumatic stress, and one of the most common reasons people suffer from that is that they´ve lived in places where there´s war and such stuff. Do you also remember that only minutes before Sophia came here, Mike and Gina told us that she could not return to her country, because it´s not safe for her there."

"so we can suppose that she comes from a country with war. Loads of countries have wars going on…"

"I´m gonna figure out some easier way to figure out, and I think I´ve already have got an idea for how we can get into the office and read her files."

"Stan, I don´t think that´s a very good idea."

"Since when are you so boring, are you in or not?"

"… I´m in."

I had hesitated a while before answering, and when Stan told me about his plans, I regret more and more that I had given him that answer.

**Monday afternoon, Sophia pov **

I was watching some TV- show with Carmen, Tee and Lily at Monday afternoon, though I didn´t really watch it, as I just sat there, thinking. Thoughts were spinning in my head, When I suddenly heard Harry shouting my name.

"SOPHIA" he shouted, and I could here he was upstairs. "Come on, I need your help." I stood up, and half ran down the hall, and up the stairs, and then down the hall upstairs, when I spotted Harry, standing In the hall. Next to him stood someone, I couldn´t see who it was, because he or she was wearing balaclava, he or she also wore black sweat pants, and a black hoodie, and in her or his hands, there was a gun.

**Mike pov**

I and Gina sat in the office, finishing some paper- work, when we heard the scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" though she was screaming, it was clear that it was Sophia´s voice. I turned around, looked at Gina, more wasn´t needed, we both stood up, and ran as fast as we could out the door and up the stairs. When I came around the corner. I saw Stan standing there, now it was clear that it was Stan, because he had pulled up the cap I guessed he had had pulled down over his face to scare Sophia. He was laughing quietly, and he had Shawn´s toy- gun in one of his hands.

**Sophia pov**

I looked to Harry, to the toy in Stan´s hand, to Stan, then to Harry again, and to the toy. I was having more and more trouble breathing, and the other residents of Elm Tree House, were one after one coming around the corners. Mike and Gina were the last one there, and then it hadn´t even been thirty seconds, not that I counted them. But it felt almost like hours to me. I couldn´t breathe, and suddenly I felt like I wanted to hurt Stan, before anyone had the chance to react I had ripped the toy of Stan´s hands, and hit it in his head. The toy broke, Stan stumbled into his room, and put his hand on his head and groaned. The next second, Mike had reached me, but his reflexes were too slow, I threw the toy after Stan, then I pushed the ones closest to me away from me, and then I ran down the hall, and down the stairs as fast as I could.

"Come on Sophia, it was only a joke." I could hear Stan shouting, but I didn´t care about him. I just kept on running, just below the stairs I met Joe, but I only pushed him out of the way and kept on running, through the kitchen, jumped over the rail to the stairs outside and landed n the hard ground. I could feel that I again got scrapes on my palms and knees, but I didn´t care, I got on my feet and ran through the trees in the garden, I stumbled on a root in the ground. I raised myself on my elbows again, retched so hard I thought I was gonna throw up, but didn´t. Then I laid down fully again. I had my face turned towards the ground, but didn´t care about it. Neither did I care about the sound of steps getting closer.

"You´re okay?" I heard Shawn´s voice. But I didn´t look at him.

"I´m fine," I lied. And then I remembered Shawn hadn´t been in the house at all when all the others came running.

"Was it yours?" I tried to change the subject. "The toy- gun that Shawn was playing with?" I turned my head to look at Shawn, who nodded slightly. "I broke it," I said. "But don´t worry, I´ll buy you a new one, as soon as I have money okay?"

"My mum gave me that," Shawn sat down next to me on the ground, and when he said that, I suddenly I felt really, really bad for breaking the toy.

"I´m so sorry."

"It´s okay, I have loads of toys and other stuff that she gave me, because she used to buy me things, to say she was sorry, but it didn´t made up for all the times she hurted me."

"I´m sorry to hear that."

"It´s okay, she can´t hurt me anymore."

"No, no I guess she can´t."

"Did your mum hurt you?"

"No…. no she´d never do something like that." Shawn looked curious, but didn´t ask anything else, he just moved closer and lifted my head onto his lap. He started playing with my hair.

"You know Shawn, I knew a boy that was very like you once." I said. "Not on the outside, no, and not in the age, because he only got four years old, but he was really, really kind like you, and you both got a lot of heart. I´m sure you could have been great friends if he was here."

"What´s his name?"

"Aaron, his name was Aaron."

**I´ll have to stop right there, because I have to do some vacuuming, before my friend arrives. But…. Preview for next chap**

"…**what were you thinking…"**

"… **have you ever heard a scream like that…"**

"…**.Now we´re gonna be kicked out of another care- home…." **


	18. Okay?

**Mike pov**

I tried to catch Sophia as she ran past me, but she was too fast, and carried on running down the hall and down the stairs.

"Let her be alone for a minute." Gina said. "She´ll come back and talk to us if she wants to, in her own time yeah." I nodded, Gina was right. Then I turned around and walked over to Stan.

"What were you thinking?" I lifted him in his shirt up on his feet, and checked the wound on the side of his head. I was almost shaking of anger, I just didn´t think I had ever been as angry with one of my kids as I was with Stan right now.

"You´re gonna be fine, it just needs some plaster and cleaning. We can do that in the kitchen."

"Though the question is if Sophia´s gonna be the same… fine I mean." I heard Joe´s voice behind me.

"What are you doing here Joe?" Stan began. "You were supposed to be in the off… ice. "Stan made a pause as he seemed to realize what he was saying.

"You two are both coming with me to the kitchen, Gina get the first- aid- kit, the rest fo you, do what you like." I grabbed the collars on the twins´ shirts and led them down to the kitchen. Where they both sat down on either side of me by the kitchen bench.

"What were you THINKING?" I grabbed Stan´s hair to make him keep his head still while I was wiping away blood from the wound. "How could you even come up with such a stupid idea."

"It was Stan´s idea," Joe said. "I was out of it already when he told me his plans. But then I had already said I was in."

"But you could have said no, couldn´t you." Gina said, and for once, she seemed a lot calmer than me.

"Yeah you could have said no Joe." Stan spat out. "But you didn´t huh? Because from the beginning it was you… I made up a plan so you could get into the office and read her files."

"I didn´t say I wanted to read her files, I said I was trying to find out which country she comes from."

"But I…" Stan started but Gina cut them off.

"Okay, okay boys, we get the point, but it doesn´t really matter who started it yeah? You were both a part of the plan, and just because you could have done it that way, it does not mean you should have. I think Sophia will tell you where she comes from, and other stuff about herself, in her own time yeah?" Stan and Joe nodded.

"You boys…" I said. "You could go start packing. I´m calling Rob and moving you two to another care- home as soon as I´ve found Sophia." Joe stood up, and said.

"I heard Sophia run out in the garden through that door." He pointed to the door in the kitchen. "Where she ran later I don´t know." I nodded thank you, and then walked out in the garden. I supposed I better search through the garden before I called the police.

"SOPHIA" I shouted, and walked through the trees to the old arm- chair in the back. No one was there. "SOPHIA." I shouted again. "Nobody´s mad at you. If you just came out, then we can talk. SOPHIA."

"Right here." I heard Shawn´s voice in the trees. "Sophia´s with me." I ran through the trees, and between the trees I found Shawn sitting, Sophia laid with her back against me, with her head in Shawn´s lap. I smiled, and could feel the anger disappear. How proud I was over my kids when they stood up for each other. Sophia sat up when she heard me coming, she put her arms around her knees, but still had her back towards me. I showed Shawn to go up to the house, and promised him a biscuit when I would come too. Then I sat down next to Sophia.

I had always thought that the hardest kids to deal with, is the ones who´s quiet. I can deal with kids crying, or the ones who just gets angry. But I never learned how to deal with the ones who´s just watching, and keeping quiet. Not really showing any feelings at all, like Sophia.

"You´re okay?" I tried. Mostly to have anything at all said.

"Why wouldn´t I be? It was just a toy."

"You´re sure." I asked.

"I really don´t wanna talk about that. Or wanna think about that, like at all… or anything else."

"You know you can talk to me right?"

"yeah, well what if I don´t want to talk." Sophia said. "Sorry, look… Mike. I really don´t wanna talk about it, not right now."

"Okay. But I´ll tell you this before anyone else does, I´ve told Stan and Joe to pack their things, we´re gonna move them to another care home. And it´s just their own fault." Sophia looked up at me, then she jumped up on her feet and ran out of my sight.

**Sophia pov**

I ran out of the bushes, and up towards the house, where I ran through the kitchen, through the hallway, and upstairs, I lifted my hand to knock the door to Stan and Joe´s room, but the door wasn´t really closed, so I could hear one of them shouting on the other one. I started listening.

"Isn´t this great Stan" Joe said with an ironic tone in his voice. "Now you´ve got us kicked out of another care home. Do you realize we´ve been in nine care- homes the last two years, but we´ve never stayed as long as here at any place. We´ve been here since December, and you know what? I liked it here. I don´t wanna go, I´m gonna ask Mike and Rob if we can be separated, because you´re the one being up to mischief all the time, and I can´t take it anymore. I wanna stay here…." Joe kept on shouting, but I didn´t listen anymore, as quiet as I could I tip- toed around the corner, and then I ran down the hall again, and down the stairs where I ran into Mike.

"Mike," I said. "I think we should give Stan and Joe a second chance."

**Preview for the next chapter**

"**So… does that mean we´re staying?"**

"**Oh no" I gasped, when the map I just had held in my hand, slowly fell to the floor.**


	19. The map

**So, the new pic for this, is a pic with the text "love is stronger than hate." Found it on Google, haha. Also, if you check my profile, I´ve uploaded two links for pictures, both of the pictures is pictures of actors I think look like how I imagined someone from one of my stories. One of the pictures is how I imagined Luce, go check it out, and tell me what you think about the look of him. If you ask me…. Oh boy, he´s hot. "Drooling."  
Another thing, is I know have come up with an idea for what´s happened in Gota, why the war started, and why the Atkins´ are white, even though they´re Asians. Gonna come up in the story, probably some time soon. It just took a little bit of help from my social- studies- teacher, so, even though she´ll probably won´t see this, big thanks. **

"Wait, what?" Mike asked.

"I think we should give Stan and Joe a second chance… come on, everyone deserves a second chance."

"You´re sure…"

"Yes, I´m sure… I want them to stay." Mike smiled slightly, then he leaned over the railing to the stairs, and shouted.

"HOUSE- METTING" Right away, there was a thunder of slamming in doors, and people running down the corridors and the stairs. I jumped out of the way and walked into the kitchen, where I jumped up to sit on the kitchen bench.

"Are you okay?" Tee asked when she came into the kitchen, and sat down by the table.

"Yeah, fine." Stan and Joe also came into the kitchen, Joe looked very angry, and he sat down on the other side of the room from Stan. Then Mike leaned against the kitchen bench, and started speaking.

"So, Stan, Joe." He began. "I and Sophia have talked a bit… and it turns out… that we want to give you another chance…"

"Does that mean we´re staying?" Joe asked. I nodded, and looked first to Stan, then to Joe.

"Look, I heard you guys… talking… and… and…. I heard you Joe… saying that you guys want to be split up… but listen… you guys, you´re twins, you´re the most important person to one another, there´s no way you could live without each other..."

"How would you know?" Stan asked. "Not like you really have a twin… have you?" When he asked that. I almost felt like a really cold hand took a grip of my heart, and squeezed it. I swallowed.

"No… no I haven´t…." I looked down… why was I saying this? I had a twin… just… not like they would have thought if I´d said yes.

"Okay, no more questions," Mike said. "Now Sophia, could you come with me to the office…"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really," Mike smiled, I jumped down from the kitchen bench, Mike started talking again.

"And I don´t want any of you… to do something like what you two" he nodded towards the twins. "Just did… again."

"No Mike…" came from every direction, and I then walked after Mike and Gina to the office.

**Tee pov**

"Why would you do something like that?" I, like everyone else turned to the twins.

"I was supposed to get into the office," Joe said. "We tried to figure out which country she´s from."

"And what did you do that for?" Rick asked. "I mean, Mike and Gina´s told us like a hundred times, that what we wanna know, Sophia will tell us when she´s ready herself."

"You should be happy Mike´s giving you a second chance." Lily said.

"But come on," Stan stood up, tried to remain cool, but it was clear that he was a bit ashamed of his behavior. "I bet we all wanna know where she comes from… I mean, we know practically nothing about her… Tee… you´re even sharing your room with her… and what do you know?"

"I… ehrm…"

"As I said," Stan continued. "Everybody who does not wanna know why Sophia´s here, raise one hand." He waited, and looked around, no one raised their hand.

**Sophia pov **

"As you may know," Mike said. "Rick´s leaving on Wednesday, and we were planning on you to move in, in his old room, does that sound all right?" I shrugged.

"I guess,"

"And also… I think… that you need some more help than what we can give you… that´s why I´ve fixed a time with a psychologist for you… and you´ve got your first appointment… on… Mike picked up a paper, "Next Monday. How do you feel about that?" I shrugged again.

"Can I go now?"

"Sure." I stood up when Mike let me, then I walked out of the room.

**Wednesday**

"Bye Rick… bye." We were waving to Rick in the driveway…. Then we all turned around and were on our way back into the house when we heard someone walk up the driveway, it turned out to be the postman.

"I´ve got a parcel for one Sophia on this address... no surname." He said. The others turned to me.

"That´s me," I said, and took the parcel, I turned it, and the handwriting made me stare at it.

"Who´s it from?" Joe asked.

"No one, Mike, can I take Rick´s room immediately?"

"Yeah… sure…"

"Thanks," I ran into the house, up the stairs, and to Rick´s old room as fast as I could. When I was there, I ripped up the parcel, as I´d recognized the handwriting on the outside. The first thing I found was a map over Asia and Europe. And it had a line drawn, from Gota, through China, into Russia, through Russia, to Finland, Through the northern part of Sweden, into Norway, from North to south in Norway, and over the ocean from South Norway to Great Britain, and to Newcastle.

"Oh no…" I gasped, as the map, I´d just held in my hand, fell to the floor.

**So… a bit of a cliffhanger… who´s sent the parcel… and what does the map mean… I know. **


	20. Things from before

**I was gonna put this AN, in the last chap, but, when Stan asks Sophia if she has a twin, and she answers him no. I find that part just heartbreaking, don´t you? **

I could hear my heart pounding in my chest. It felt like a cold hand had gotten around my lungs and pressed them, I could not breathe. I squatted down next to the wall, I tried to breathe, when the door knocked and Mike came in.

"Sophia," he rushed across the floor and squatted down next to me.

"I… can´t… breathe."

"Hey, hey, look at me," Mike looked me in the eyes. "Sophia, you´re having a panic attack, try to breathe slowly... Come here," Mike embraced me, held me in his arms. Usually, I would push him away from me, but I didn´t want to, it felt quite good sitting like that, and slowly, the cold grip around my lungs began to ease. I pulled away Mike´s arms from me, and stood up.

"I´m sorry," I mumbled.

"No, no don´t say you´re sorry. Sophia," Mike laid his hands on my arms, and bent down to look me in the eyes. "What´s going on?"

"Nothing," I lied.

"I can see there´s something," I sighed, bent down to the floor and picked up the map, I let Mike take a look at it.

"The handwriting outside the parcel is Luce´s," I almost whispered. "This map laid on top of it all when I opened it. I think it means that he´s gonna come here."

"But… isn´t that good?"

"Have you even looked at the map?" I asked him. "Do you understand how dangerous this road is, he´s crossing the land- border from Gota to China over the mountains, then he´s travelling through China, without a visa. If he gets caught he´s never gonna get here, and there´s a good chance he´ll get killed, I´d say he´s not safe until he reaches Finland. But if he gets caught… I don´t even wanna think what could happen to him if he did."

"Sophia… Shouldn´t we hope for the best?" I could see clearly that Mike did not quite know what to say.

"Maybe... I should probably check through the rest of the box… Maybe it´s got a letter in it."

"Yeah.. ehrm," Mike scratched his head. "Ehrm, I´ll tell Johnny, Tyler and Joe to move your bed over here. But maybe you should come take the other stuff yourself!"

"Yeah, probably," I laid the map in the box again, and hid it in the wardrobe. Then I walked over to Tee´s room.

"Ehrm, Tee, I´ve put some of my things in this box." I held up the plastic box I´d hid under my bed with a drawing and the clothes I had worn when I came here.

"No," Tee said. "You can have it."

"Thank you." I carried the box over to my new room, on the way I passed the boys who was trying to carry my bed together over to the new room. I placed the box too in my wardrobe until I had the bed to put it under. I did not want the boys to have some idea to go through my stuff. Then I went back to Tee´s room to get my clothes. I took them all at once and then I started folding them, and putting them in the drawers at my bureau. When the boys had carried the bed into my new room, Mike came in with the sheets.

"You…" he gave me the sheets. "You know that you can paint this room however you want right?"

"Yeah, I know," I answered. "But.. can I have some time to think about how I want it first…"

"Yes of course, just tell me or Gina if you wanna go to the shop and pic out some colour or something else."

"Okay," I nodded. "Ehrm, could you leave me alone now?"

"Yeah, of course." I closed the door after Mike, and I pulled out the plastic box from the wardrobe, I placed it under the bed, that stood in a corner of the room, and then I pulled out the parcel I had got from Luce, I placed it on the bed, and opened it. The map I laid to the side, and then I pulled out the next thing. A tape, I thought I knew what was on it. But I decided to wait a moment with listening to it, there was also a videotape, but I really didn´t wanna look at that… not yet… and I hesitated of the fact that I´d ever be ready enough to watch it. I opened one of the drawers of my bureau, and hid the video tape under a T- shirt.

The next thing I pulled out of the box was thee bracelets, Each of them had a cross, and the rest of it was leather. One of them was mine, the other had belonged to Sophie, and the third had belonged to mum. I could see which one was who´s at the colors mine was purple Sophia´s was blue and mum´s was white. I knew that there was three more bracelets, I guessed that Luce had those, his was green, dad´s black, and Aaron´s was yellow. I pulled mine over my hand, and pulled the laces so it would suit my thin wrist. I pulled out three bracelets more, all with letter- pearls on. One of them created my name, another said "Aaron" and the third, "Luca." The next thing I pulled out a small leather- bag, and I placed all the bracelets in it. And hid it in the back of the lowest drawer on the bureau, that was empty so long. I now had both of my bracelets hanging from my wrist, and the rest of them hidden.

The next thing I pulled out was a rope, I and Sophie had used as a jumping rope. I hesitated on if I should hid that one too, but decided not to. And I laid it to the side, and pulled out the last thing that laid in the box, an envelope. I pulled out two photos, one with Luce holding me and Sophie as new borned- Luce was eleven years old at the photo, and he had a huge smile on his face.

The other photo was a photo of me, Sophie, Luce and Aaron, when Aaron was three- I and Sophie nine, and Luce twenty.

There were also a letter in the envelope, I sat down on the edge of the bed and read it

_Hi Sophia _

_I cannot tell you how devastated I became when I heard the news about you, Sophie, and dad. How it must feel to you, that I can´t even imagine.  
But Sophia, please, stay strong, I´m coming for you. Though, if you hate me, and never wanna see me again, I can really understand.  
I´ve got the rest of the bracelets, I´ve also got the ashes.  
But however you feel, and whatever you do, I love you, with all of my heart. Now, and for always_

_Luce_

That was it, and I guess he had really tried hard, not too write something that could get him caught in the letter.

"I´ve also got the ashes," I whispered to myself, "What does that even mean?" Then a thought hit me, maybe dad, mum, Aaron and Sophie had been cremated, maybe those were the ashes Luce was talking about. I sighed, then held the rope in front of me. I took it and walked over to toy- cupboard, I tied one of the ends of the rope in the roof, and made a snare in the other end.

"If Luce dies," I whispered to myself. "I´m gonna go in here… and hang myself." I sighed, and hid the snare on the highest shelf. Then I walked out of the cupboard, and closed it behind me.

**So… Luce is on the run through China without a visa… no good.  
Please review, it makes my day, and I´m home alone with the dog until Sunday, so I could really use some cheering up. **


	21. Painting George

I sat on the floor, my back against the wall, looking at the newer photo of me and my sister and brothers, just looking at it. Me and Sophie, with our dark, long hair and brown eyes, looking almost exactly the same. Luce and Aaron, with short, spiky dark hair, but with the same brown eyes as me and Sophie.

I looked up and pressed the photo to my chest when someone opened the door to my room without knocking.

"It´s lunch now." Jody said.

"Jody, you´re supposed to knock before you come into someone else´s room."

"Sorry, what is that?" She pointed to my photo.

"Nothing."

"Well whatever it is there´s something written on the back." I turned it, and there actually was something written there.

_If you hate me for what I did, then remember what we always used to say. _

I turned it again, and looked up at Jody.

"I´ll be in the kitchen in a minute, could you go out of my room, and close the door after you?"

"Yeah." Jody did as she was told I stood up, hid the photos under my pillow and looked around at the walls. I had been thinking about not doing anything at all with it, but I´d gotten such a good idea.

"Mike?" I said when I got down to the kitchen.

"Yeah."

""I think I´ve decided how to paint my room."

"Okay. Do you want to go to the store after lunch then?"

"Yes."

**Three hours later**

"So, I´ve mixed the black and the white paint, to the right grey. That wall, I pointed behind me, is gonna be in that colour, I pointed to the wall behind me. "Is gonna be that colour," I pointed to a bucket I had mixed white and black to dark grey in. "That wall," I pointed to the wall ahead of me, "is gonna be white, the rest I´m gonna fix myself."

"What… but…"

"Just trust me Mike."

"Okay." We started painting.

And then we started, when the two one- colored wall, then I almost kicked the others out of the room, and started with the other walls. For almost one week, I didn´t let anyone come into my room. I painted, then I had to stop painting and do another wall. Until the color had dried. I used a lead pencil, to do the patterns, filled it with black paint, when the lighter painted underneath had dried, so it wouldn´t turn grey. Melanie left the dumping ground during the time I was still in my room all the time, they didn´t have a new trainee. But let´s just say that I couldn´t care less. On the Monday I thought that it was time for the first appointment with that psychologist, but it turned out that it was on Monday in one, so I just kept on painting.

And then finally, I was finished, I was in the living room with the others in the morning, when Mike came walking.

"Oh hey Sophia." He said. "So, have you got tired of all the painting, or did you just feel like being a bit social."

"No I´m finished." I said. He raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Can I go see it."

"Why not?" I stood up and walked before Mike (and Tyler, Jody, Tee, Johnny, Carmen, Lily, Harry, Gina, Shawn and the twins) to my room. When we came there, I walked in first, then walked backwards to see their reactions.

"Oh… wow." Tyler was the first one speaking. He ran his hand through his curly hair, looking kind of confused.

"You painted this?" Jody asked.

"Yes." I said, and looked around for about the hundredth time. The wall in the back of the room was the wall everyone had helped to paint middle- grey, The wall in the front was white, and on the other two walls, most parts were white, but in the edges, it was as sort of zigzag pattern, I had wanted to make it look like, the light was pushing out the dark. On the darker wall, I had painted some sort of black shadow. That I had tried to make it look like, the light was pressing it away. And on the all-white- wall, there was text, in golden and purple paint.

"Love is stronger than hate!" Stan read out loud, then he turned to me. "Really?"

"Yes really. Now get out." I kicked the others out of the room. Well, not literally, but when they were all out of the room, Joe or if it was Stan was still inside. I closed the door.

"What do you want Stan?" I asked.

"I´m Joe…You sure are a very good artist." He looked around. "Any… special hidden messages in this?"

"No, what would that be?"

"I don´t know, I was just being curious… was… any of your parents or siblings being a good artist too." I had just sat down on my bed, now I flew up on my feet again.

"Don't… talk about my family," I fizzled.

"Sorry Soph."

"GET OUT." I screamed, opened the door and pushed him out the door. "GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT." I closed the door after him.

I looked around my room again, thought about what really was the message with the black shadows. That they were a part of my nightmares, that they would like float over the skies, and walls, whisper words I couldn´t hear. There were no point with telling Joe that. There were no point with telling anyone that.

That Monday, it was time for me to go to that psychologist for the first time. Mike drove with me to the hospital, but while I was there, he had a few things to do. I walked through the corridors at the hospital.

When I first came to this hospital, from Gota. There had been a few weeks, when I could barely move, not so much for the pain from the wound, mostly from the pain with Sophie and dad gone.

After a few weeks, a nurse had told me it would be good for me to get up and walk a few times a day, go out, get some sunshine on me if the weather was good. Just for a couple of minutes for a start, a little longer for each time.

I had been at the hospital for almost two months when I moved into the dumping ground. And by that time, I was known as the corridor- hiker, I had started with walking one time a day, just around the children- apartment. But ended up going further and further, and had ended with going around the hospital about five times a day. Most of the nurses and doctors nodded, or greeted when we met in the hall. Smiled, I could see they knew who I was, not by person, but as whom I was known for.

I sat down in the waiting room, there was about half an hour to the time I should have been here. I was early. I started looking around, a blonde little girl, maybe six or seven, sat in her father´s lap, reading out loud. A brown- haired boy, about four, playing with a red- haired girl about his age. Their mums sitting in chairs not far away, talking. A girl, about ten, and a boy about my age, probably siblings, they had the same dark- brown hair.

Yes, they were siblings, now the father came along, and they walked down the hall and disappeared out of my sight.

I sighed, all these families, now a black woman, came along with a boy, maybe about one year old in her arms. Why could everyone have their family, have their parents and their siblings, when I couldn´t have mine. It wasn´t fair.

Another woman came along, out from the corridor to the apartment, her son was kicking and screaming for candy. I sighed once more, children didn´t even realize that they should treat their family good. They didn´t understand how grateful they should be having them.

I sat like that for a while, leaning back in the chair, looking around and thinking. I tried not to think about my family too much, it was so painful, but it was hard not to.

"Sophia Atkins," I at last heard someone call my name, I turned my head to see the psychologist who had called my name, and what I saw, was definitely not the stereotype of a psychologist, but on the other hand, what was… well definitely not this.

The man was about two meters tall, had black hair, a ring in his eyebrow, elongation- earring. (pretty small one, but anyway) Dressed in a checked button- up shirt, with the sleeves pulled up to just above his elbows, ripped jeans, a leather- wristband pulled at least five times around his wrist, and a silver- colored, (all normal- looking) wristwatch.

"Ehrm, hello. You are Sophia Atkins are you?" he said, and I shook my head.

"Ehrm, yes." I walked towards him, he reached out his hand.

"George Leslie, you can call me George."

"Sophia Atkins, you can call me Sophia."

"This way," he held his hand out, and we walked down the corridor.

**So, that´s the second chapter in one day. Wehey, I wasn´t gonna introduce George just yet, but I decided to do that anyways. And, I guess in GB, you call doctors and teachers, and whatever by MR. Mrs. Or miss, but it just felt so wrong, George is George and that´s what he´s called. (I can tell that in Sweden, it´s not common at all to call each other Mr. and Mrs. It more likely never happens. I tell all my teachers, and doctors, and… by their first names, no one does anything else) **


	22. Molli

**So, it hasn´t got to do with this story, but if you´re a twilight- fan. My twilight- fic is going to be a Sims 3- series, you´ve got the link on my profile if you´re interested.  
I´m so sorry for not updating. **

When we came into George´s room, or office, or whatever to call it, I stood still for a couple of seconds and looked around, the room was small, but kind of a lot of things were pressed into it. There was a bookshelf, two of three shelves in it were jam- packed with books, about different disabilities, and phycology. On the third shelf there stood a few framed photos. A desk, with a laptop, more books, and a kettle, next to there stood an open box with teabags A few windows with curtains hanging so that no one could look in,, a closed cupboard, with curtains hanging so that no one could look in, a table, and three chairs. I sat down in one of the chairs. George poured hot water from the kettle in one cup and then looked to me.

"Tea?"

"No… no thanks." I shook my head, he nodded, took a teabag for his own cup and then sat down, on the opposite side of the table from me, he placed his cup at the table and looked at me.

"So…. Who is Sophia? Tell me ´bout yourself."

"What do you wanna know about me?"

"I dunno, what´s interesting to know about you?" I shrugged.

"I´m Sophia Atkins, I´m thirteen years old, what more do you need to know?"

"Do you know why you´re here?"

"Because Mike sent me!" George chuckled.

"Do you know why he sent you?"

"I guess I have some problems." I forced myself to talk, then I swallowed to save some time. "I… I´m sorry, I can´t… I can´t tell you anymore." I stood up. "I´m… I can´t tell you, it will hurt you." I took three steps over the floor and felt the door… locked. I tugged the lock, one time, two times, three times, faster, faster, faster. In the end I kicked the door as hard as I could, I didn´t care about George´s attempts to calm me down.

"OW." I jumped on one foot, with my hand around my toes on the other one.

"Sophia," George tried. "Sophia sit down, just a second. I limped over to the chair, and sat down again.

"Sophia, I know it´s hard to talk about." He began. "And I´m not forcing you to tell me anything, but you should know that, I´ve heard loads of people that have suffered traumas, and then just tried go talking to a psychologist, and that it actually makes it better."

"It won´t make it better." I said. "Can you let me out now?" George reached for something on his desk, he reached me two small cards. With his name, mailing- address and phone number.

"At least take my card, you can give the other one to Mike or whatever his name was. Just call if you need help all right?" I forced my head to a nod. George opened the door, and held it open, I walked out of the room, and without looking back, I walked back to the waiting room, and through the corridor to the lobby, and outside.

It was sunny outside, Mike wasn´t there yet, so I sat down on one of the big sand- boxes and leaned against the wall, and after a while, I spotted the elm- tree- house- van, and stood up.

I climbed up into the front seat, next to Mike, and put the seat- belt on, none of us said a word before we came out on the highway.

"So, that went faster than I thought it would!" Mike said. I shrugged, he continued. "How did it go?" I shrugged again. "You wanna go back there?"

"NO. I don´t ever wanna go back there, or to any other shrink ever AGAIN." I half- shouted, and then kept on looking out the window. When we had gotten out of the car, I reached him George´s card, and then walked up to my room. But I had barely gotten there, when Gina called down for house- meeting. I walked downstairs to the kitchen with the others.

"So," Mike began. "There is a new girl arriving tomorrow. Her name is Molli, and she´s five, she´s just gonna be here for about a month or two, because her father´s having some trouble coping. So I want you all to be on your best behavior when she gets her okay? Oh… and yes, she´s sharing with Carmen."

**The next day **

I was in the lounge, doing mostly nothing when Molli arrived the next day, the door knocked, and we heard Gina get it, than the voice of a grown- up- man was heard, and we heard two steps of pairs coming down the hall. Into the lounge came first Gina, then a blonde man, perhaps in his mid- thirties, with Molli sitting on his hip. At the sight of all the people in the room, Molli, who seemed very shy, buried her face in her father´s shirt. He smiled, and began talking to her.

"Turn your head princess" he said. "You gotta let the others tell you their names don´t ya?" Molli shook her head shyly, but turned her head a little, Gina pointed to us others, one at the time.

"This is Tyler, Frank, Joe and Stan, Carmen who you´ll be sharing room with, Tee and Sophia."

"Hi!" Carmen stood up and walked over to Molli and her dad. "I´m Carmen, I´m sure we´ll get along well. What´s your favorite colour?" Molli didn´t answer, and buried her face in her dad´s shirt again.

"Yeah, what is your favorite color princess… is it… ehrm… green?" Molly shook her head. "Okay… so what about brown? Not? So then… pink?" Molly nodded. "Oh yeah, that´s right, you like pink very much don´t ya?" Molli smiled. "And what do you like more then? You like horses?" Molli nodded again. "You wanna show them your collection?" Molli nodded again, and got up a box of my little ponies of her backpack.

It was later the same day, when the disaster stroke, I was on my way downstairs, when I heard kicking on the inside of the toy- cupboard- door. I stopped for a split second…

"Oh, god no." I turned around and ran as fast as I could to the cupboard, and opened the door, and yes, I had been right, from the snare I had hung in the roof, to hang myself if Luce didn´t make it here, Shawn hang, and he was panicking, I was on my way to start panicking to, but I forced myself to keep calm.

"MIKE." I shouted. "MIKE, SHAWN´S DYING. HELP, HELP. TEE. You know where those edge trimmers are?" Tee nodded. "Get one of those, Johnny get Mike…. Now." I was trying to loosen the snare around Shawn´s neck but he was kicking so he only kicked me away. But at last, after several painful kicks in my stomach and chest. He became unconscious, and I could get close enough, just as Tee came running with the edge- trimmer, I opened it, and cut the rope, Shawn fell to the floor with a bang, I fell down on my knees, Shawn wasn´t breathing. I started doing CPR.

"COME ON SHAWN." I shouted. "COME ON SHAWN. PLEASE DON´T DIE."

_Please don´t die_

**Oh yeah, I know I´m the world´s most evil person for stopping there. Please review. **


	23. The consequenses of the snare

**There is links to photos of actors that looks like characters on my profile, for this story there´s one for Luce, one for Molli, one for Shawn and one for Stan/ Joe. Go check them out and tell me what you think.  
And also, I know people in GB usually don´t get summer holidays until like, middle of July, but I´ve moved it forward a little, to have some more time to work on **

I walked down the aisle in the huge church, I had my head bowed down as I walked over to the coffin in the front, and laid a rose on the badge that read "Shawn Jason Teddie, 050614- 130709" I read a silent prayer, and then turned around and sat down between Mike and Molli on a bench, as the pastor started speaking. People were crying around me, everyone were crying, on the other side of Mike from me, Mike and Gina held each arm around Harry´s shoulders Harry himself was hugging Jeff, sobbing unstoppably.

When the funeral was over, and we had come back to the dumping ground, we all gathered in the kitchen, all of us helped to get ready for the dinner, and then when we ate, I just sat pushing the food back and forth on my plate. It was what I normally did, so no one really reacted before I laid the fork down on my plate with a bang.

"Guys," I began. "There´s something I gotta tell you…" I took a deep breath. "I was the one hanging that snare in the toy- cupboard. I received a letter from my brother. He´s trying to get here from Gota, but the long is long and dangerous, and I hung that snare there, because if he died, I would get in there and hang myself."

"Well, Sophia, we´ve got something to tell you too." Mike said and stood up, he walked over to the door and threw it open, out there Luce stood.

"Luce?" I stood up, and with my arms stretched out to give him a hug, but when I got close enough, he pushed me in the chest, so I fell into the table with a bang, it broke, and all the plates came down. Either on me or on the floor with bangs.

"How could you be so stupid?" I had never seen Luce this angry. "Hang a snare there? You should have been thinking that one of the smaller children could find it, now you´ve killed Shawn. You´ve killed his best friend!" Luce pointed to Harry. "I don´t want anything to do with you! And neither do them." He pointed to all the others. Luce walked past me and out of the kitchen.

"And now you´ve ruined our dinner."

"I spent hours with making this." Gina said, but I knew it was a lie, because the food had been ready half an hour before we got home, all the others stood up, and marched out if the room.

"No, please don´t do this… Tee? Molli? Jody? Mike? Gina? No, no, no…"

My eyes flew open, I was breathing heavily, and soaking wet of sweat. First I thought that it was the nightmare that had woken me up, but then I heard sobbing from the corridor outside my room, I kicked the covers off me, and tip- toed over the floor and out the door.

"Molli?" I exclaimed, and squatted down next to the crouched, sobbing girl on the floor. "What are you doing out here? It´s in the middle of the night!"

"I wet the bed…" she started, before sobbing again. I stroke her arm. "And then I tried to find the bathroom, but I couldn´t find it in the dark." I thought for a split second, and then looked to Molli again.

"Molli, the bathroom´s over there." I pointed. "You go in there, I´ll get you some new PJ:s, and then I´ll go change the covers at the bed… can you do that yourself?" Molli nodded. I walked over to hers and got the pajamas, then I walked to the bathroom and reached Molli the new PJ:s. Then I walked over to the cupboard and got the sheets I needed, before tip- toeing inside the room, and as quiet as I could changing the sheets, and going downstairs and put the dirty sheets and PJ:s in the bottom of the laundry- bag. Then I walked back upstairs, pulled Molli´s covers over her, before walking back to my room and laying down, but I just laid there, staring up in the ceiling.

Earlier today, or yesterday more likely, the clock had passed four a.m. Shawn had at least been breathing when the ambulance arrived, I hadn´t dared to tell the others I was the one to blame for this. Mike had gone with Shawn to the hospital, Gina stayed with us. The rest of the afternoon and the whole evening had passed by, without any phone calls from Mike, and at last, by midnight, Gina sent us all to bed. Claiming that Mike wouldn´t call at this time anyway.

I hadn´t thought I would be able to fall asleep after what had happened tod… yesterday. But after three hours of tossing and turning, I had finally fallen asleep… to the worst nightmare so far. I felt that I needed some fresh air, so I tip- toed out of the room, and up to the roof. I sat down, and looked up in the starry sky. I sighed, from the high- road, the far sound of a few cars was heard. I looked down, and then up to the sky, just to spot a falling star.

"Falling star" I thought to myself. "Gives me one wish." I sighed, and started talking out loud.

"Please… dear god… if you´re there, and the star. Please let Shawn be all right… I couldn´t live with myself if he died." I sighed once more, and looked down. Then I turned around, and climbed back into the house, no one would know I had ever been up on the roof. I tip- toed back to my room, I laid down in my bed. For some reason, I felt really calm after making that wish, and I fell asleep after just a couple of minutes.

When we were eating breakfast that morning, the phone began to ring. Gina took it, while all of us others were too nervous to take one more bite before Gina put the phone down.

"Shawn haven´t woken up yet! But he´s gonna live. Whether he´s got some permanent damage from the loss of oxygen is a bit early to tell, but the doctors have done some tests, and they think he´s gonna be just fine.

All the boys in the room except Harry laughed of relief, Harry hugged Jeff, Carmen and Tee hugged each other, obviously crying, Gina comforted Molli and Jody, and I, in the middle of it all, didn´t know what to do, so at last I stood up and walked upstairs, I got Shawn´s backpack, and packed some clothes, a few books I knew were his favorites, and his teddy- bear named Moonie. I threw the backpack over one shoulder and wrote a note for Gina that I left on the counter in the kitchen.

_Taken some of Shawn´s things and gone with them to the hospital, taking the bus.  
Sophia_

I walked out, and towards the bus stop, after jumping on the bus, and going to the hospital. When I came into the hospital I stopped by the reception.

"Excuse me, which room is Shawn Teddie in."

"How old are you?" the receptionist asked.

"Thirteen but..."

"An underage can only come in with an adult."

"Yeah but…" I looked around, and spotted George not far away, I ran over to him.

"George, George, please help me, one of the kids from the dumping ground almost died yesterday, it´s my fault, I´ve got his things but I can´t get in because I didn´t bring an adult and…"

"Slow down Soph´ hold on a second… your fault?"

"Long story… Please help me to get in." George nodded.

"There´s a risk Katheryn will recognize me… then it won´t work… but just wait here, I´ll get something from the masquerade- box in the children´s apartment." George walked in and came back with his hands in his pockets . He pulled me onto the side and pulled on a leather jacket (which I presumed was his own) he used a fake- mustache, and a black knitted cap, then he pulled me back into the reception.

"´´Xcuse me miss, we´re here to see Shawn Teddie." Katheryn nodded.

"Three stairs up, second corridor on the left, room twenty thirty two." George nodded, and we walked together into the stairs.

"Thank you." I said, when George pulled of the mustache, and put the ring back in his eyebrow. I ran up the stairs, and threw the corridor until I had found the right room. I stopped for a second, and then opened the door and walked into the room.

It looked like Shawn was sleeping in his bed, but I assumed that he was still unconscious, Mike was sitting in a chair next to it, sleeping with his head on Shawn´s bed. I walked over to Mike and shook his shoulder.

"Mike… Mike."

"Yeah… yeah, what… Sophia? What are you doing here?"

"I brought some of Shawn´s things… could you just go out of the room for a minute… I gotta do something, Mike nodded and stumbled drowsy out of the room. I sat down, and pulled out Moonie and put it next to Shawn. I pulled out a book and started reading.

"Once upon a time… gosh what am I doing? I threw the book on the bedside table and took Shawn´s hand.

"I´m sorry…" I whispered. "That snare was meant for me I´m so sorry." I started sobbing and put my hand down on the bed, the thought that Mike might come back didn´t cross my mind until I heard the door open.

"Sophia… are you all right?" I looked away, and dried the tears with my sleeves.

"Yeah… yeah I´m fine."

"Do you… wanna talk about what happened?"

"No."

"Gina called… she´s worrying sick."

"Why… I wrote a note…"

"A note… what were you thinking?"

"Okay, okay, I´m going back." I stood up and walked out of the room, out of the hospital and to the bus stop. I took the next bus to the dumping ground, and listened to Gina´s lecture.

That afternoon Gina called down for house- meeting in the lounge, I already sat in one of the sofas and could see that Gina was angry about something."

"Mike called, Shawn´s woken up, he´s been speaking… He´s been saying, that someone had already put that snare in the cupboard… whoever did it, it was an irresponsible thing to do, and I want the person who did it, to step forward… now."

I didn´t have the guts to step forward, and then the phone called again, and Gina walked out of the room.

"So… who did it?" Joe asked.

"Yeah… Sophia? How did you know instantly what was happening when you heard that kicking from the cupboard." Stan said.

"Okay… I was the one hanging that snare there. But…"

"Why would you do something like that?" Carmen asked, and soon everybody had started talking, all at once.

"Wait… you don´t understand."

"So what is it we don´t understand… that you wanted someone of us dead…" Stan said.

He could just as well have kicked me in the stomach. I rushed out of the room, and blinded of tears I stumbled out of the dumping ground.

**The next morning, George pov**

I was late for job the next morning when I pressed the button on my phone so it started reading up the messages… unimportant… commercial… and then

"Hi Mr. Leslie, this is Mike from Elm Tree House. One of our residents almost hang himself yesterday…. It came out that the snare was Sophia´s, the others started blaming her, and I think she also blames herself, now it seems like she´s run away. I think we could need your help when she comes back…" An address was read, I didn´t listen to it, I knew where Elm Tree House was, I grabbed my leather jacket and ran out to the reception.

"Ruth, please cancel all my meetings today, it´s an emergency." I shouted to the receptionist, before running out of the hospital and to my car.

**So… bet I gave you a major scare in the beginning of this chap. Please review. **


	24. Lost without you

**Look, there is one part of the story, where it´s gonna shift between Sophia´s and Luce´s pov, So, I´ve got a system, don´t worry. **

**George pov **

I slid out from the parking lot next to the hospital, and hit the gas I continued onto the highroad, I prayed to God the cops would have anything else to do then standing by the highroad just this morning. Obviously they had, as I safely drove onto the parking lot in front of a big yellow house, and a sign that said "elm tree house." I got out of the car, and half ran up to the front door and knocked the door. A boy, looking about eight years old came and opened, he was blonde, and held a stuffed giraffe tight to his chest. I opened my mouth to ask for an adult, but before I had the time, the boy had turned around and ran screaming down the hallway.

"MIKE, MIKE." I heard the boy screaming. "THERE´S A DANGEROUS MAN STANDING IN THE DOOR." Then I heard multiple pair of feet coming closer, and six children appeared in front of me, there was the blonde boy again, the oldest seemed to be a pair of identical twins, a dark girl, a smaller, blonde girl and a brown- haired boy. While I registered them all in my brain, another blonde girl, a girl with long brown hair and another boy with afro- hair appeared. I ran my fingers through my own black hair and sighed.

"Is there any adul…" I began, when a man in his forties appeared, some of the children stepped away as he was the first one to speak.

"Ehrm…" he reached out his hand. "Michael Milligan, you can call me Mike… and you are…

"George Leslie, the psychologist. Call me George" I shook Mike´s hand.

"Gosh, must be the first time they´ve all be quiet for this long."

"Yeah, yeah, guess I can look a bit frightening at start." The blonde boy took a step forward, hugged the stuffed giraffe he held in his arm harder and said.

"Jeff doesn't like you, he thinks you looks scary."

"HARRY." Mike said. "That´s a rude thing to said." I chuckled.

"So, Jeff doesn´t like me. Who´s Jeff then?"

"The giraffe" came from at least eight different angles, I chuckled. Apparently, this kid, I guessed Harry was his name- expressed his own feelings and thoughts through that stuffed animal.

"Well, does Jeff like me more if I can do this?" I did the "magical" trick with pulling out a coin from behind Jeff´s ear. Harry stared with big eyes. "Or this?" I "pulled out" another coin from behind Jeff´s other ear. Harry stared with even bigger eyes.

"H-H-How did you do that?" He stuttered.

"Sorry kiddo, a magician never reveals his secrets!" I stood up fully.

"Well, where were we? Oh right, ehrm, I saw Sophia at the hospital yesterday. She claimed something about how a kid from here almost died, and that she was the one to blame, and today I get a message on my phone from here, claiming that Sophia ran away after it came out that it was her fault. Can someone tell me the whole story?"

"Yes, yes, of course, sorry to let you wait, it´s a bit much to think about right now!" Mike showed me to step into the house. I walked after Mike through the corridor, and into a room to the left. **( A/N It´s the quiet room, I think it would be to the left) **There was a patterned (not pretty) wallpaper, two couches, a table, a bed, and a few other furniture.

"Sit down please." Mike said, and closed the door behind us. "Now, I´m sorry for what Harry said!"

"That's all right," I chuckled. "He´s not the first kid thinking I look quite scary. So… what´s the story then?" Mike sighed and started telling me.

"There was a snare, made by a jumping rope hanging from the roof in the toy cupboard. Apparently Shawn saw it, climbed up and fell with it around his neck. Sophia heard kicking on the door, realized what it was and ran over there. One of the other kids got a hedge trimmer that Sophia used to cut the rope, when he fell he had already stopped breathing. Sophia did CPR, and by the time the ambulance came, Shawn was breathing again. Some time yesterday, the kids started discussing who had put the snare in the cupboard. It came out that Sophia was the one hanging the snare there, Sophia ran away, and since then we haven´t seen her."

"Mike?" The door had opened slightly and the small blonde girl I had spotted earlier came into the room.

"Molli… not n…"

"One of the twins said something bad to Sophia that made her run away."

"What… what did he say?"

"He said that Sophia wanted one of us to be dead."

_Sophia pov _**Luce pov **Both pov

_I woke up, I had slept laying across some seats in the bus station waiting- hall. I sat up and stretched out my arms and legs. Then I checked my clock for the time. It was a quarter to ten. _

**I woke up, I had slept (as usual) on a back street with broken, old and wet old cartons as covers, they lay behind a restaurant, and they were stinking of fat and other, not so good- smelling kinds of food. I checked my watch, a quarter to three A.M. Well, guessed three hours would have to do it tonight. That also meant that in Great Britain, where Sophia was, it was a quarter to ten. **

_I looked around, there were loads of people crowding in the waiting hall, I stood up and walked out of it_

**I stood up and walked out of the back street, there were almost nobody out on the streets. **

_It was sunny outside, for once. I pulled my hoodie off and tied the arms around my waist. _

**It was raining, pretty much as always. I pulled my hoodie around me harder, the closest thing I had to a coat. **

_I looked around at all the buses, maybe I would go behind that children´s family that was getting on a bus, the bus- driver would think that I was a part of the family, he´d think he´d counted the tickets wrong, and I would go, towards an unknown goal. _

**I reached a train- station, yeah I know, I would go on a train without paying, isn´t that what people on the run do. Well China isn´t the right place to do it, not even with a fake ID- claiming that your name is Harry Clock, that you´re born February the 28:th in 1989, that you´re from England, with an actual photo of yourself. If I got caught, things could end up bad, really bad. **

I shook my head and kept on walking.

_I looked up to the sky. And whispered, "Please Luce, please be safe." _

**I looked up to the sky and whispered. "Please Sophia, please be safe." **

I kept on looking to the sky and continued . "Please be safe, because I´m so lost without you"

**George pov**

"Have you called the police, have they got a photo of her."

"Yes, yes." Mike answered me.

"We gotta find her…. We gotta."

**So, that´s it for today, what did you think of that Luce/ Sophia- part. And as well, I have a storyline turning up in the end of the summer holidays (Sophia and the other´s holidays, not mine) but between now and that I´ve got almost nothing, so if you´ve got any ideas for what to happen in this, please send me a PM. Just, please no pairings. **


	25. Revealed

**Hey, since I´m writing it the TSOTB- part of ff now, I guess that some of you know Mr. Zeze. I know him pretty well, we sent like a thousand messages back and forth here on ff for months, and then we got each other on Facebook, and sent like three thousand messages (so far) anyway, I got to meet him in person last week. He was really nice **

**George pov **

"So..." Mike began. "From what we heard from Molli, one of you told Sophia, that she would want one of our residents dead. What were you thinking?" I and Mike was in the office at Elm Tree House, talking to the twins, Stan and Joe I thought their names were.

"Well…" one of the boys started, "the thing is…"

"Hold on…" I began. "We´ll do it like this." I pulled out a chair. "Which one of you said that to her?" One of the boys raised his hand, "come sit here." I pulled out a chair, and took another chair and pulled it so in case there would be two people sitting there, they would be sitting looking at each other. The boy sat down, and the other boy started to sit down on the other chair.

"No, no, you keep on standing. What´s your name?" I turned to the sitting boy.

" Stan Burnes."

"Okay Stan Burnes, imagine…. Sophia sitting on that chair." I pointed to the empty chair. "Imagine, you´re the only two in this room, and say, whatever you wanna say to her…."

"This is a stupid game…" Stan said.

"No… no just try it."

"Okay… okay…" Stan said. I moved to the end of the room, I showed Mike and Joe to be quiet, and then…

"and…. Action." I said. Stan looked to the chair in front of him.

"You know you´re kind of scary right?" He began. "You look like some creepy kid from a horror movie. Gosh seeing you with all that black hair, and pale skin, gosh kid! You look like a freaking ghost… and besides that, you´ve got these creepy eyes, and look like us others like you´ve got the world on your shoulders. Like… maybe it would get better if we actually got to know ANYTHING about who you are and where you come from. I mean, creepy just get creepier when you know nothing about it. Guess that´s what making people so afraid of the dark, they don´t know what´s there, the unknown scare…. Damn what am I doing? This is a stupid game," I looked to the floor for a second, when I looked up again, Stan was storming out of the room.

"You wanna give it a try?" I looked to Joe, he nodded, and sat down on the chair, Stan earlier had sat on, none of noticed that the door to the office was still a little bit open.

"Hey Sophia." Joe began, obviously insecure about what he would say. "You know… before you came here, I and Stan… or mostly Stan actually… we had been like… ruling this place. And… I don´t think you´re the one scaring Stan… I think what scares him, is that since you came here. When the others see the way he treats you. They understand what a big jerk he actually can be sometimes… most of the time. And his willing to have power over everything and everyone, and the way he thinks that he can do whatever he wants to everybody. It´s gotten us kicked out of eight care- homes. And… I´ve been starting to think… that maybe, maybe it would be better for all of us, if I and him were split up. Because, Stan has a way of getting foes with everyone, and when he does that, they usually think the same about me. And… the thing is… I kind of like everyone here, I kind of like everything about this place… and… and maybe we could be friends… when you come back." Joe stopped talking.

**Joe pov **

I stood up, thanked George and walked out of the office. Just when I came around the corner, before I could react, Stan had pressed me up against the wall.

"What´s going on with you man? You´re supposed to be on my side! What are you falling in love with the creepiest little creep in Newcastle or what?"

"No… I´m not falling in love with her!" The door to the office opened, George and Mike came out, the two of them, together managed to pull my brother away from me. When I stood on my own two feet Stan continued.

"Then why are you acting like this… you wouldn´t go all maybe we could be friends with a girl you weren´t in love with."

"Well maybe I would."

"Joe, seriously. You´ve never had a girlfriend, and now you go all, maybe we could be friends over a girl. I mean what am I supposed to expect?"

**George pov**

Joe seemed very stressed out at this moment, he was stroking his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand, and his breath was shaky. He was fingering with his own fingers, while he took a deep breath.

"I couldn´t fall in love with Sophia… I couldn´t fall in love with her."

"What do you mean you couldn´t fall in love with her?" Stan asked.

"I couldn´t… I´m in love with someone else." Stan laughed.

"So you couldn´t fall in love with two people at once… bullshit. Who´s the girl you´re in love with?"

"No… I mean it… I couldn´t fall in love with her… and it´s not a girl… it´s Mark Eden… I´m gay."

**Sophia pov **

I sat leaning against a wall, at the mall in town, a little boy, maybe four or five years old walked past me. The boy looked at me, his eyes met mine for a split second.

Brown… big, soulful eyes… Aaron? I shook my head and looked away. Of course it wasn´t Aaron, this guy had much lighter hair than Aaron once had, and Aaron was dead. And if he lived, he would be seven years old now. I looked back to the boy, no, now when I saw his face, I saw that he had an all other shape of his face, and he was taller than what Aaron had been.

"COMPETERS , COMPETERS." A man, about twenty, walked around the mall. "NICE PRICES, COMPETERS FOR A DRAWING COMPETITION." Hmm, maybe I could win some money, maybe I would have some money and buy something to eat. I stood up and walked over to the guy.

"C-c-c-an"

"Can you compete? ´Course you can madam! " He laid his hand on my back and lead me towards the competing place, where two others, a man about forty and a girl about my age. The man who had lead us there took a microphone.

"So…. What you´re gonna do is… you´re getting each paper and pencils, and with those, you´re gonna make each picture of something you see around you. You can take help of the people around you, you can tell them to stay as a model, but you can´t let them draw for you… You get ten minutes… one two three… start." I looked around, and spotted the little boy with eyes that looked like Aarons. I walked over to him and sat down on the floor.

"Hey, is it all right if I draw you?" the boy nodded and I held my papers on the floor and started drawing, I only used the grey pencils to draw the boy. I did every move fast and short, so I would get done in time. When it was two minutes left, I was done, the picture wasn´t too god, but it would do it.

"What´s your name?"

"Christopher." I wrote his name in one of the corners of the paper, and my own in another corner. Then I showed the picture to Christopher and his mum.

"Oh wow mum look." Christopher said, his mum kneeled down beside him so she could see it better.

"Look at those eyes. " She almost whispered. "Wow, my young lady, you´ve sure got some talent, you´ve managed to get the sparkle in Christopher´s eyes, the soul in them, buy using pencils and a paper." I thanked her. And then it was time for the judges- who were the audience, all the people at the mall it seemed like, the man who held the competition jumped up on a table and showed the audience the three pictures.

"This is… what did you say your name was sir?" the man looked down on the competing man. "Oh yeah, Lenny Murray´s picture, everybody who think it´s the best claps now." A few people clapped their hands... "Everybody who thinks Louisa Kip´s is the best… clap now." There were about ten to fifteen people clapping their hands, and I held my breath when I understood what was happening.

"And everyone who thinks this picture made by… what was your name?"

"Sophia Atkins."

"Sophia Atkins is the best… clap now." The whole mall exploded with clapping, and cheering.

"I guess we´ve got a winner." The man lifted me up on the table, and gave me my drawing, and a bag. I looked down in it, it had a draw pad- of that kind that´s really, really expensive, that real professionals use. And packages with pens and pencils, it also had small bags of candy and crisps. Great! Food. I climbed down from the table and took my first drawing and I reached it to Christopher.

"Here, you have it." I said. "There´s nothing I can do with it now." Christopher slowly reached his hand forward, and grabbed the drawing. I shook hands with his mum, and then Christopher hugged my legs after I stood up. I stroke his hair and looked up, and saw two police- men coming walking towards me.

"Uh- oh." With the bag with my price pressed to my chest so I wouldn´t drop it I ran as fast as I could away from Christopher and his mum, and desperately looked after somewhere to hide.

**George pov **

After Mike had wandered off with the twins, I walked into the office, I sat down on the chair the twins earlier had sat on, and looked to the empty.

"Imagine Sophia´s there." I said, mostly to break the silence. I took a deep breath and started.

"You know Sophia… before you came in, I´d had about five clients. Not so many in other words. But anyway… I can´t remember anyone of them, that I can remember meaning so much as you do. Why? Because you remind me of me. Yes I know, you´re a girl. But… you see, when I was twelve, I ended up in a care- home, a place just like this. I saw my mum murder my older brother after he told them he was gay. I couldn´t do something about the fact that he was dead, and when I saw that, I became… I don´t know what to call it. For the first year I lived in care, I barely ever spoke, and when I did it, someone had spoken to me first, asked me something," I opened the buttons in my button up. I had a simple white T- shirt under. I pulled out the left sleeve, and revealed a tattoo on the over- arm. A picture of an angel- boy, spreading out its wings.

"I got this for him, as soon as I´d turned eighteen. His name was Geoff." I stroke away two big tears that were floating down my cheeks, but soon, they were running faster than I could stroke them away.

"George?" I looked up when I heard Mike´s voice, he stood in the door, and I could see on the look on his face, that he had heard it all.

"You heard it!"

"Most of it I think." He came to sit at the empty chair, clapped my shoulder slightly.

"Do you… do you want to stay here until Sophia comes back?

"Yeah… yeah sure, I would like that."

**Stopping there…. Well… everybody who didn´t think Christopher was adorable raise one hand…. Thought so.  
well, guess you didn´t expect that about either Joe or George, don´t like, don´t read. **


End file.
